“I went weeks without reliable cell service,” she said. “I would’ve called sooner if I’d known you were engaged. Congratulations!”
“Oh, yeah, thank you.” I glanced at my ring. It was weird being married but keeping it a secret. I kept forgetting that no one else knew. “I didn’t want to bother you while you were taping.”
“Bother me? You’re mydaughterand you’re gettingmarried. It’s no bother, Emme.” There was a voice in the background announcing an increase in incline coming up. “I was just so surprised that I had to hear about it from that person your father married. She called to ask about my availability. Were you aware she’s throwing you a little party?”
All at once, I felt like a shaken bottle of soda with pressure gaining force as it gathered at the top. My mother knew exactlywhat she was doing with phrases likethat personandlittle partyandmy availability. She drew the lines and I was allowed to color inside them. Anything outside those lines was a betrayal of the worst kind. There was not an inch in between.
“Yeah, Danielle mentioned that,” I said.
“I politely informed her that themotherof the bride would be the only one to host a gathering,” Mom went on, still breathing hard but her sharp tone was enough to send a shiver of dread through me. This could very easily turn into her ranting about Danielle for two hours. And I was complicit. I’dspokento her, of all the inexcusable things. “You just know anything she did would be so tacky. Not a drop of class in that girl. I really hope you didn’t give her the impression you’d attend.”
Whatever Danielle was planning, my mother would plan to double it. Triple it. Make it so huge and excessive that I disappeared from it entirely but she emerged with the satisfaction of winning a game where she was the only one keeping score.
Hell, she was the only one playing the game. Danielle did a good job of staying out of Mom’s dance space but I also knew she didn’t worry about anyone else’s opinion of her. She said it was none of her business and that she’d never get out of bed if she tried to care about making everyone happy.
“I didn’t really commit to anything,” I said, aiming for a disinterested tone.
“That’s a relief.” After blowing out a labored breath, she went on. “I’m so happy for you, darling. It’s such an exciting time. We’ll have to put together a list of designers you like for your dress. Custom, of course. Everyone will want to know who you’re wearing. Show your father and his child bride how well you’ve done for yourself.”
“Those things cost more than my entire salary.”
She scoffed. “That’s what you have a fiancé for, my dear.”
I took a long sip of water instead of responding.
My mother did well for herself these days. The reality shows, brand deals, and appearances gave her a fine income of her own, and her current husband Dell had money like Scrooge McDuck—he could swim in it. But it hadn’t always been that way.
The child support situation from my dad wasn’t great. He always gave me lavish gifts—clothes, electronics, a car when I turned sixteen—but he’d fought to pay my mother as little as possible. Things were worse after her second marriage to Gary, who couldn’t keep a penny to his name. She learned some hard lessons and went into her third marriage with an excellent prenup. When that whole thing went to hell, she left with a golden parachute.
If I ever asked her for money, she’d help me. But my mother wasn’t one to offer. There was no trust fund, no allowance. Not from her.
There was a trust fund from my father though, one he’d restructured to prevent me from accessing until I wasforty-fivebecause he wanted to keep my mother away from it as long as possible.
My mother had never forgiven him and I had some complicated feelings too, though it was the size and force of her reaction to that move rather than the events leading to it that hurt me most of all.
The trust fund wasn’t amended until my last year of college, a few months before I was scheduled to gain access to it when I turned twenty-two. It came after a Christmas spent on a private island with my father, Danielle, and my half brothers. Though I didn’t share the holiday with them since I was shipped home early.
I still couldn’t remember what I’d said to set my father off. Probably some snarky comment or a petty complaint. Nothingthat should’ve resulted in him throwing a heavy-bottomed rocks glass at my face and splitting my cheek.
By the time Danielle came back from the beach with the boys, glittering shards of crystal covered the tile floors. He hadn’t stopped after the first glass. He went on screaming that I was spoiled and ungrateful. That I was turning into the same sort of manipulative whore my mother was.
My father was quick to anger and I’d heard all of it before but something broke in me that day. Any ability I’d had to tolerate that relationship dried up while blood and tears dripped down my face. Any connection we’d shared was severed when he told Danielle to get me out of his sight.
He’d barked orders at her about letting me find my own way home but she didn’t listen. Somehow, his rage always bounced right off her. She fixed my face and promised to fix my father too, even if he was a mule who wouldn’t change easy. She booked me a first-class seat, swore she’d do everything in her power to make it right, and hugged me harder than anyone had before.
A few weeks later, the letter arrived with a chunk of legal documents. He apologized for losing his temper though quickly transitioned to telling me I’d made inexcusably poor choices by pursuing education as a degree and sticking with it. Since I’d declined his invitation to work for him, he believed it was time for me to live with the consequences—and do it without the aid of a trust fund.
I hadn’t spoken to him since that holiday. He’d left voicemails though I didn’t listen to all of them. The first year or two, I deleted everything. I was too scarred, too exhausted from carving him out of my heart and cauterizing those wounds to try. But then Danielle insisted he was making changes. He was seeing a therapist, trying meds, cutting back on the alcohol. Some of the messages sounded like he was reading a script or he’d called to fulfill a requirement. Danielle’s or the therapist’s,I didn’t know. He promised to do better, to clean up his act, to fix his mistakes. I wasn’t sure he knew what all of those things entailed. Others were emotional. In the last year, he’d cried in all of them. It sounded like he’d discovered that one parent taking out their vendetta against the other parent on the kid wasn’t healthy for anyone.
Sometimes, he suggested he’d be willing to turn over the trust fund if I visited him in Chicago. Maybe it was pointless to leave that money on the table but I couldn’t bring myself to go crawling back to him. If he wanted to fix things, it wouldn’t start with me making the first move.
Though the money would’ve been nice. It would’ve helped a lot, especially living in an unconscionably expensive town like Boston—and on a teacher’s salary. But I managed. And through it all, my mother’s primary contribution was outrage. There were endless tirades about his desire to use money to punish anyone who crossed him, and convoluted legal strategies she’d invented from talking to someone married to a lawyer. She couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t stop with her vendetta against him.
And now she wanted me to use Ryan’s money to land another hit. As if any of it mattered.
I knew she was thinking Ryan would see to it that I had a custom gown. She knew what he earned, what his endorsements were worth. She was more plugged into the game than most of the analysts on sports networks. Nothing off the rack for the highest-paid player’s bride.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
