“Haven’t gotten around to it,” I said, lifting the glass in explanation.
My mother clicked her tongue at me, rolling her eyes. It was a tiny expression, but it hit me like a gut punch. I still wasn’t good enough for her. Never would be.
Tears began to smart in my eyes as I took the foil off the roast chicken, preparing to cut a portion for my brother’s dinner.
“He likes the leg, Deena,” my mother reminded me as she poured my father’s drink.
“Right,” I said, shifting to give him the preferred cut of meat. Couldn’t even get that right.
“Potato salad in the fridge,” she said, gliding out of the kitchen toward my father’s study.
I took a deep, shuddering breath to compose myself. I was being ridiculous. It was one weekend, and then I’d be back to my regular life. I could do it, even though being here made me feel like every breath was inhaling crushed glass. As I put my brother’s dinner on the plate, I built up my walls. These people were my family, but they didn’t know the real me. They could think whatever they wanted about me—it didn’t change my worth. I’d built my business and my life the way I wanted, and I was proud of my accomplishments.
I felt as alone as I had at eighteen, when my college application had come back approved and I’d worked up the courage to tellmy parents I’d applied. They hadn’t congratulated me. Instead, I’d been informed that I wouldn’t be getting any money to study, even though my brother did.
I felt as alone as I had at thirteen when I was told I had to quit softball because the competitive league my coach wanted me to join was too much of a commitment when my brother needed rides to his extracurriculars.
As alone as I’d felt at six when I had to stay inside and play with stupid dolls when my brother got to go out and explore the forest park at the end of the road.
My mom came back in and took my brother’s plate from me, adding some more meat and waving me away before hurrying out to feed her favorite.
I leaned against the kitchen cabinets and counted to ten, but it didn’t help. I still felt angsty and lonely and hurt. I felt like a freak who would never fit in, and I was annoyed at myself for caring. I was a grown woman, and I knew how my mother was. Still, she knew how to twist the knife with little more than a flick of her fingers or a sideways glance.
“You look fat, Deena. New York doesn’t agree with you.”
I jerked and looked up to see my mother frowning at me as she re-entered the kitchen. “Mom,” I protested. “Come on. Can we at leasttryto have a good weekend?”
“I’m just saying,” she said with big eyes. “No need to get all huffy about it. Look at the size of your hips! I don’t know if the dress I got will fit. Have you gone up a size?”
My hips were perfectly normal, and I would not,would not, take her comments to heart.
But Iburnedon the inside. Burned all the way up the back of my throat and in the middle of my chest. I felt my shoulders cave in on themselves and had to force myself to roll them back out.
“Here,” my mother said, handing me a plate. It held a few stringy pieces of chicken beside five or six green beans.
“What’s this?”
“Dinner. Go and sit with Brooks so he’s not on his own.”
I reached for the spoon in the potato salad bowl, and my mother stared at me disapprovingly. Because the plane had actually been a magical time machine and I had apparently transformed back into a sixteen-year-old girl, I scooped up twice the amount of potato salad I wanted and gave her a snarky smile.
I hated myself around her, and I couldn’t stop.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” she said. It wasn’t a compliment.
Feeling ashamed of myself, I stomped out of the kitchen and sat across from Brooks. My dad took his usual seat at the head of the table, where his plate had already been left. Mom came back in with a drink for my brother and a few bits of bird food for herself. I ate while my brother told our mother about the tooth fairy debacle, glad, for once, that no one cared to ask me a thing about myself.
Just as we finished dinner, the doorbell rang a moment before Stacey’s voice called out, “Hello!”
“We’re in here!” Brooks replied.
Mom stood up as Stacey entered, and my sister-in-law waved her back down. “We’re good. We ate on the way back from the game.” She had both kids with her, Corey in his baseball gear and Riley wearing a flouncy pink dress, proudly smiling to show off the gap in her teeth. She carried a gift bag in her right hand.
“Did you win?” Dad asked Corey.
My nephew beamed. “Yep!”
“That’s my boy,” my dad said, grinning.
