My hand was on the front door now and I could hear voices inside, Mom saying something sharp, Dad’s mumbled response.I should take a breath, pull myself together, be the good daughter who smiled and nodded and didn’t make waves.
But that hot, jagged thing was getting bigger, pushing against my ribs, making it hard to breathe.
I opened the door and stepped inside.
Mom appeared immediately from the kitchen, her face already set in lines of disapproval. She took one look at me and her mouth pursed in that familiar expression of disappointment.
“You’re late. And you look terrible. Didn’t you even try to fix your hair before you came?”
The words hit different this time, sharper and clearer, because I’d just been told my art wasn’t good enough and now here was my mother telling me I wasn’t good enough either. The hot jagged thing cracked open just a little bit wider.
“Hi, Mom,” I said, my voice flat. “It’s nice to see you too.”
I followed her into the dining room where Dad was already seated, staring at his plate. Mom’s good China was out, a roast in the center surrounded by perfectly arranged vegetables.
I sat down in my usual seat. The one I’d occupied for family dinner my entire life because it had the perfect view of the garden shed. Just to remind me.
Mom settled across from me, her posture rigid, her mouth already forming that pinched expression that meant she had something to say.
We made it approximately thirty seconds before she struck.
“So.” She reached for the serving spoon. “Have you heard back from that art school thing yet?”
That art school thing. Like it was a hobby. Like it wasn’t the most important thing I’d ever done in my entire life.
Unfortunately... showed promise... another candidate...
“You can stop bitching about it.” My voice was eerily calm. “I didn’t get it.”
Mom paused, the spoon hovering over her plate. For just a second, something flickered across her face. Not sympathy. Never sympathy. More like satisfaction.
“Oh.” She set the spoon down carefully. “Well. I suppose that’s for the best, really.”
The stone in my chest cracked.
“For the best?” My voice was flat. Dead.
“Emily, you were never very realistic about your talents.” She said it so matter-of-factly, like she was commenting on the weather. “I did try to tell you art wasn’t a practical path. Perhaps now you’ll finally listen and focus on something you can actually achieve.”
Something snapped.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just a clean, quiet break, like a frozen branch giving way under too much weight.
I set down my fork carefully and looked directly at her. When I spoke, my voice was ice.
“Well, maybe if you hadn’t been such a fucking cunt to me my whole life, I would have been a better person.”
The silence that followed was absolute.
Mom’s face went white, then red. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air.
Dad’s fork clattered against his plate. “Emily!” His voice was sharp, scandalized. “You do not speak to your mother that way!”
I turned to look at him, really look at him, and something cold and venomous unfurled in my chest.
“Oh, so now you have something to say?” I kept my voice perfectly level, perfectly controlled, even as rage burned through every cell in my body. “Now you’re going to defend her? Because she heard a bad word?”
“There is no excuse for that kind of language?—”
