She met my gaze. “Tight…? Maybe.”
“Looks to me as if you don’t want to disappoint her.”
She looked at the sunset. “I feel like since I was a teenager, starting to figure myself out, I was expected to be what she wanted. She’s my first female role model. Naturally, I…”
She trailed off.
“You made yourself small to fit her vision,” I offered.
Her eyes widened. “How did you come up with that? That’s suspiciously accurate.”
“I overheard your conversation with her during Sam’s going-away lunch.” She shut her eyes and scrunched her nose. “It came through the bathroom pretty clearly.”
When she opened them again, her cheeks were flushed. “That’s what I hate about that hollow house with its thin walls. They’ve outdone the tabloids and turned into their own gossip column.”
I huffed a laugh. That was my girl, witty even when mortified.
She sighed. “I guess it’s easier to please and hold back. As a girl, I picked up on her moods easily. She’d said she was fine, but it always felt off.”
She paused, then continued with a breath. “Lately, I’ve been trying to make sense of it, and I think it ties back to our lifestyle.”
“Your lifestyle?”
She nodded. “Before they got married, Dad was a rising star at a global distributor company. Jet-setting, perks, the kind of job that came with champagne toasts. I’m sure Mom was praised for ‘landing’ him.”
I listened, letting her put it together.
“Their wedding photos look straight out of a luxury catalog—champagne towers, silk dresses, bosses flown in. She thought she was marrying into the country club life.”
Mel exhaled. “But then the company crashed a year into the marriage. Layoffs, gone. Dad pivoted into office work.”
I felt a pang for Bill.
“That must have been devastating for your dad. Getting a set down like that for a man’s ego—that’s a blow.”
“Must’ve been. But the new job was steady, respectable, but not the dream she built her identity on.” She shook her head. “I can still see her in silk loungewear on a Tuesday, flipping through travel magazines. That’s not a to-do list for a middle-class family, you know.” She looked at me. “Things like an invitation that didn't come from a certain country-club woman? she would sigh loud enough for them to hear.”
“I can see it now.” I thought for a bit. “At Sam’s goodbye lunch, the table was all fancied up with china, linen napkins in ornate rings. It was nice, though.”
“Nice, but knowing who Sam is, you didn’t expect that.”
“No,” I admitted. Then, after a pause, “So why did she stay?”
Mel shook her head. “I don’t know. I suspect it’s because leaving would’ve meant admitting the dream never matched thereality. To her parents, her friends, and even herself. Could she have saidI’m unhappy because my husband isn’t earning as much as I’d like?”
“Yeah, no. That’s not something you say out loud.”
“Maybe she hoped Dad would land another global job, or maybe it was easier to stay in the life she had than risk building another on her own.”
“So, she married the ‘corporate golden retriever’ dream but ended up with the ‘hardworking labrador’ reality.” I pieced it together.
Mel’s lips curved, then flattened. “That’s what I think. And instead of pitching in, she clung harder to the fantasy. Strange, right?”
“I doubt those women she related to were clocking nine-to-five either. She probably thought she was keeping up.”
“Exactly.” She moistened her lips. “After Dad paid off the house and our undergrad, they retired early to enjoy life. Now she resents him for the financial fall, even though she cosigned the failed investment. It’s as if she decided she deserved it, no matter how reality played out.”
Bitter.The word jumped out of me. It explained everything and nothing at once, because life never turns out the way we want it.
