Oh, here we go…
“I am happy,Maman,” Nicolas frowns at her sudden change of mood.
“I sure hope so!” Solange scoffs. “Andyouwould invite your mother to your wedding—”
“We didn’tnotinvite you,” Emi sighed. “Weeloped, Solange. We literally had only two witnesses and signed a piece of paper. We weren’t going to ask you to come to Quebec City for something that took half an hour. We already explained to you that we will have a proper ceremony next year with you and my parents, and Antoine already booked your plane ticket!”
I really should have taken an extra slice of Comté… Now the bread basket is gone, and I’m fidgeting with my napkin under the tablecloth. I glance at Nicolas, but as always, he’s so calm and impervious to their fights…
“Well, I would have liked to be asked all the same,” Solange scoffs.
She adds something in French, jumps to her feet, and it gives me a few seconds of panic before I realize she is going to the bathroom. Is it over already…? I let out a little sigh of relief and wait until she’s out of earshot to ask Emi.
“Are you alright?”
She hesitates, staring at Solange’s back. But then, to my surprise, she suddenly takes a deep breath and turns to me with a sincere smile.
“Yeah, I am,” she nods. “Thanks, Ophelia, I’m good. I hate to say it, but I’m used to her stunts by now… and I did promise Antoine I’d behave.”
“Antoine asked me to intervene if it got too bad,” Nicolas confesses. “He said you’d give me a signal if it… got problematic for you.”
Emi lets out a chuckle, puts her hands on her belly, and caresses it with a loving smile before she looks back at us.
“I know he did,” she beams. “We had so many…discussionsabout your mother.”
“What did Antoine say?” I ask, curious.
Emi lets out a long sigh.
“Well, she used to… really,reallyget on my nerves. It was so much worse when Antoine and I had begun dating, and I was trying so hard to please her… It was a nightmare. I’d get so upset and frustrated every time we visited her; nothing was ever good enough, and I was a mess for days. So much that Antoine and I fought too. In the end, we agreed to go to couples therapy.”
“Couples therapy?” I blink, shocked. “But you two are so… soperfectfor each other!”
Emi scoffs.
“Thanks, Ophie, but therapy wasn’t some last resort,” she says. “We agreed it was better we go long before we reached a breaking point… It’s like people we see in the E.R., who tell us they’ve been ignoring that ‘little pain in their side’ for a month and end up needing surgery for something that could have been treated with meds if it had been taken seriously early on. Antoine and I just knew we couldn’t figure it out ourselves, so we sought help.”
“I see…” I nod, taking in what she says. “So, did it help?”
“It did,” Emi nods with a little smile. “Antoine and I are both people pleasers, and it was difficult for me to get over that. Therapy helped me realize that the only opinion that mattered was Antoine’s, who loves me and has my back, always. But he also loves his mom, and I don’t want to take that away from him. Surprisingly, once I stopped caring who was right or wrong and stopped trying so hard to please Solange, something just… clicked?Whether she liked me or not, Iwasgoing to be in her son’s life. I knew that, and Antoine had never let me think she could… I don’t know, make me lose him.”
“He does love you a lot,” Nicolas remarks. “He’s stood up toMamanbefore, on even smaller matters. I don’t imagine he wouldn’t speak up when you need him to.”
“Oh, I know now, but it wasn’t always the case,” Emi grimaces. “At first, I thought the solution was to push back against Solange’s remarks. I fought every little thing to make a statement, and then I’d get upset with Antoine when he didn’t immediately take my side. Our therapist helped me see that holding him hostage in our fights didn’t help; in fact, it hurt us more as a couple. …It feels so silly now, how eager I was to win some psychological war against your mother. Once I stopped, everything became so much easier. I felt almost silly how petty I’d been. I realized Solange couldn’t start a fight if I didn’t give her one, and honestly, letting go of things has been more freeing than any argument I could have won. So, now, I pick my battles; the rest, I let go. My peace of mind comes before those petty wins, and it feels much more satisfying too. …Maybe it’s me, but I think that when I stopped fighting back as much, she kind of backed off, as well. We set some boundaries and still avoid some sensitive topics because they’re not worth it, but somehow that’s enough. And, here we are. Five years later, Antoine and I are still together, I can sit at a table with his mother for a Christmas Eve dinner, and we have a baby on the way.”
She smiled at her bump, lovingly caressing her belly. Then, she met my gaze and winked at me.
“You want to know if I’m alright?” she whispered. “I am. Even when she makes me mad, I remind myself of what really matters. She might be a pain in the ass, but that woman is my baby’s grandma, and I only see her a few days a year. She might not like me, but she loves my husband, and she’ll love my kid, so she and I have that in common. I can work with that.”
That’s… Emi is so amazing.
I smile back at her, because all of a sudden, I realize how mature Emi is. She’s just a handful of years older than me, but she has been with Antoine longer, and she definitely had a harder time dating him too. Solange welcomed me warmly when Nicolas first introduced me, and sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t to spite Emi. She always went on about how Nicolas had “finally” found a “nice girl,” but that was pretty much it, aside from the weight comments…
So, right here and now, I quietly resolve to be a little bit tougher. Because Emi’s right; Solange’s comments reflect her, not me. Nicolas is the best, most amazing boyfriend I could ask for; his mom being a bit difficult the few times we see her isn’t an insurmountable task!
I’m still quietly fangirling at Emi’s maturity when Solange comes back to the table, and I witness her daughter-in-law smile politely at her from behind the frosted rim of her third mocktail of the evening.
“What did I miss?” Solange asks immediately, frowning at us.
