“I’m gonna miss you ladies then,” he said with a lift of his glass.
“Take care, George!” I called.
“Huh, he didn’t mention if Dawn was coming,” Rachel said.
“Nope,” Abi said. “If she were coming, then he’d be walking faster. And he would’ve chugged his wine instead of sipping it.”
Good points, both.
“So if we run off to New York the weekend after next, what will you do?” Abi asked Mom.
“I will be sleeping in,” Mom announced.
“A wise choice, Mrs. ...?”
“Quarles,” Mom supplied.
Poor Rachel. Mom would change her last name to something else soon enough, and we’d all forget that one, too. If I’d been her, I would’ve quit changing my name after husband number two, but either the woman got a perverse joy from hanging out at the DMV or she was the world’s greatest optimist.
“I was sad to hear you were going through a divorce, too, Mrs. Quarles,” said Abi.
“Oh, girls, call me Heidi, for heaven’s sake. And don’t worry about me. I found a new therapist, and she’s really helped me see some things about myself.”
“You have a therapist, too?” asked Rachel, eyes wide in the excitement of shared experience.
Abi and I exchanged an oh-Lord-there-they-go-talking-about-therapy look. I zoned out until Mom said, “Well, when I figured out that I’d been getting married because I thought I ought to be married, that was a real eye-opening moment. I don’t think I’m going to marry again.If I meet a nice person—unlikely at my age—then we’ll just have to shack up.”
I spewed my very expensive wine.
“No, on second thought, I’m keeping my own place. We’ll just get together when we want to.”
Abi and Rachel agreed with this sound logic, but I was still looking at my mother, the woman who wanted to live in geriatric sin.
“It’s just ... it was different when I was younger,” Mom said. “The women’s movement hadn’t happened, and marriage was ... expected. We were all supposed to pick a husband and have kids. I thought I’d picked a nice man. I mean, I guess he was okay, but the minute we were married he expected me to defer to him.”
Abi and Rachel murmured sounds of encouragement, utterly oblivious to my suffering.
“Sometimes I wonder if I ever liked men at all or if that was something else society foisted on me.”
I choked on my wine again.
Mom whacked me on the back. “Are you okay, Vivian? You seem to be having some kind of fit this evening.”
“I’m fine, Mom.” My voice came out as a croak.
“You know, I really expected you not to be such a stick-in-the-mud about such things,” Mom said.
“I’m cool, I’m cool. I’m just adjusting,” I said.
“Well, for heaven’s sake, don’t marry again quickly. Take your time after Mitch. Better to be alone than to be with the wrong person.”
Who was this woman? Had aliens replaced my mother? I studied her, trying to find the flaws in the extraterrestrial engineering. If anything, they’d made a better, healthier version of my mother: rosy cheeks, thick salt-and-pepper hair she kept stylishly short. She had a glow about her and was trimmer than she’d been the last time I’d seen her.
Just seeing my mother as a woman—a happy woman at that—gave me another shred of hope to put in my little ragbag of faith. Maybe she and Rachel were right about this therapy thing. I knew she was rightabout how it would be better to be with no one than to be with the wrong person. Only, if I thought too much about all the time I’d wasted catering to Mitch, I would be crying in seconds.
Dylan. If it weren’t for your life with Mitch, then you wouldn’t have Dylan. You’re forty-four. Not dead.
No, but my lower back sometimes felt as if death might be preferable.
