“It was too expensive. Too much of a risk. It’s a lot to take on if you crash out halfway through.”
“I don’t think it’s a risk. Not for you, anyway. You’ve always done anything you’ve set your mind to. You’re the most determined person I know.”
Ed nods in agreement, and I can’t help but smile. Sometimes I doubt Katherine’s reassurances that what Mom is saying about me isn’t true. I don’t know why. She’s entirely consistent in the way she sees me.
“But it’s crazy, right? I can’t actually do it.”
“Why is it crazy?” Katherine asks.
“Law school? For me? Mom would say—”
“Mom is ridiculous,” Katherine says. “Don’t let her dictate what you are and are not. If you want to do it, you should do it.” Katherine shrieks and for a split second, I think she’s laughing at me. That she’s going to say,Kidding! Of course you can’t go to law school. Who do you think you are?“Have you still got that bowl on your coffee table?”
I glance over at the brown glass bowl Mom bought me as a graduation present.
“Turn the camera around,” Katherine says. “I bet you still have it.”
“It was a gift!” I say, trying to defend myself.
“It’s disgusting. Have you seen it, Ed?” Ed shakes his head. “Show Ed. You’ll die when you see how ugly it is. I swear it was such a weird gift. Especially when I got a Tiffany necklace when I graduated.”
I’d expected to receive the same exact gift my parents had given Katherine when she’d graduated two years earlier: a silver necklace with a heart hanging from it. When I unwrapped the sludge-colored bowl, I told myself I shouldn’t have expected a gift in the first place, and not loving the bowl was ungrateful.
“Did you ask for the bowl?” Katherine asked.
“Did I ask for abrownbowl as a graduation gift?” I ask her, wanting her to really listen to the question she’s asking me.
“I asked for the Tiffany necklace,” Katherine says.
Katherine’s statement takes me by surprise. It didn’t occur to me to ask for anything. “It wouldn’t have mattered if I’d asked. I still would have gotten the bowl.” I grab it from the table and hold it up so Ed can see.
He wrinkles his nose.
“Why do you have it out?” Katherine asks. “To torture yourself?”
It’s a good question. I hate the bowl. I’ve always hated it. But Mom picked it out herself. I had to have it out, didn’t I?
“What if Mom comes over and it’s not out?”
“When’s the last time she came to your apartment? Hell, when’s the last time she came to New York City?”
I know the exact time. “When I moved in here.”
“Oh, God, yeah, and she brought that awful mirror she’d been given by the neighbor across the street who died the next day.”
“What?” I ask.
“Was it Betty? Or Beverley? You know, the woman across the street. She gave Mom the mirror, and then Mom gave it to you as a housewarming gift because she didn’t want it.”
Three years that horrible mirror has been in my hallway because I thought my mom had bought it for me with thought and love, and because she wanted me to look nice when I left my apartment. But it was none of those things. She was basically using my apartment as a recycling center when she gave it to me.
“Don’t tell me you still have that up, too?” Katherine hoots with laughter.
But it’s not funny. Not to me. The mirror. The bowl. They’re symbols of how Mom pretends to care. Pretends to show affection when what’s she’s doing is exactly the opposite.
“What did you get as a wedding present from Mom and Dad?” I ask.
“Oh, just some cash,” Katherine says casually.
