He frowned at me. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to be civil.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I muttered, anger sparking. Easy for him to say, when he’d grown up having me and Mom and all our aunts serving him food and doing his chores. Being civil for him meant being polite. Being civil for me meant shrinking myself to fit in a box of other people’s ideals.
“Christ, Deena. I was actually looking forward to seeing you before I remembered you’re a total bitch.”
Heat seared through me, and I slammed his car door as soon as I’d stepped outside. The weekend was off to a flying start.
And it only got better.
The front door of the house opened, and my mother stood there, her hair perfectly set, her pale yellow pants matched with a crisp white sleeveless shirt. She planted her hands on her hips andtsked. “Do they not sell hairbrushes in New York City, Deena?”
“Nice to see you too, Mom.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said, flapping her hands in the direction of the messy bun Brooks had attacked on sight. “I’m sure Annabelle can fit you in before the party.”
“I’m not letting Annabelle anywhere near my head,” I warned.
“And I’ve got a dress for you to wear, so don’t you worry about that,” my mother said, ignoring my words. She put her hands on my shoulders, looked me up and down, and sighed. Then she turned to my brother, and a giant, beaming smile broke over herface. “You are such a dear for doing that, Brooks. I know going to the airport for Deena was an inconvenience.”
Words couldn’t hurt me. I wouldn’t let them. I swallowed back the burning ball of emotion in my throat and glanced at my brother.
His gaze slid toward me, then back to our mother. “It was no problem,” he said. “Dinner ready?”
“I was just about to fix you a plate. Deena, go on into the kitchen and do that while Brooks brings in your suitcase. You’ll stay in your old room.”
My old room was no longermyroom. They’d converted it to a guest room the moment I’d left for college. It was as clear a message as any that their home wasn’t my home anymore. I’d made my choice, and I’d chosen wrong.
“Yes, ma’am,” I grumbled, full of repressed teenage angst and all the bottled-up hurt I’d spent the last decade running from.
My parents lived in a five-thousand-square-foot home built with red brick and a grand colonnade entrance. Dark blue shutters framed the windows as mature, leafy trees and perfectly manicured bushes lined the walkway from the driveway to the front door.
My throat tightened.
I remembered rushing up these steps and being told that ladies didn’t run. I remembered slamming the door when I pretended I was going to run away half a dozen times as a child. This time, when my thumb pressed the latch on the cast iron handle, it felt like I was opening the door to someone else’s home.
My mother hadn’t gotten over her love of wallpaper in the years since I’d been here. White wainscoting covered the bottom half of the walls on the entire bottom floor, with the top half of the entryway papered in a silver floral motif. To my right, the formal living room opened up, dramatic moldings painted a fresh whitewith dark blue wallpaper covering the walls. The blue set off the rich reds of the sofas and Turkish rugs.
I blinked at the photo of Brooks and Stacey just visible on the mantel—no sign of me in the pictures there, but that was no great surprise—then turned toward the hallway that would lead me to the kitchen. Mom had changed the colors of the walls here, going with a deep ochre color through the hallway and dining room, which opened onto the huge kitchen she’d renovated twice over the course of my youth.
She’d done it over again recently, with navy cabinets and pure white marble to match the theme of the formal living room. Plates waited in a stack on the island next to a roasting tray covered in foil. Steam wafted out as I peeled the foil off, and the smell of my mother’s cooking brought another host of memories rushing back. Not all bad ones—there were years and years that I’d clung to her skirts and tried to be the daughter she always wanted.
“Maryanne, is that you?” my father called out.
“Just me, Dad,” I called out, exiting the kitchen to find him in his study. Familiar dark mahogany bookcases framed him as he sat behind the chunky matching desk, his head bent over papers. He was balding, the spotted skin of his scalp showing through the white hairs he still had. Sometime in the last three years, my dad had turned old.
He looked up when I hovered at the doorway. “Deena! You’re here.”
“I’m here,” I confirmed.
“Where’s your mother?”
“She’s outside with Brooks,” I said, wandering in. An empty glass rested on the corner of his desk, diamond shapes etched into the crystal. A slice of lemon was nestled between half-melted ice cubes. I guessed he wanted my mother to refill his drink, and I grabbed the glass, operating on autopilot. “I’llget it.”
“Thanks, honey,” he said, and reached over to chuck my chin.
It wasn’t until I was halfway back to the kitchen that I cursed myself for slipping so easily into the role I’d tried to leave behind. Why couldn’t my father refill his own sweet tea? Why couldn’t he even get up off his chair to give his only daughter a hug after not having seen her for three years?
“I’ll do that,” my mother said, flapping her hands at my father’s glass. “Where’s Brooksy’s plate?”
