I loved! But that wasn’t the point. Who was this materialistic woman and where had she been when I really needed her?
“The exterior is next,” Terrance chimed in, cradling Lucy in his arms. “We’re having it completely redone after the winter months.”
All these years of ridicule for being the black sheep of the neighborhood and now they decide to update—at a time when I get absolutely no benefit from it?
“You alright there, Sweetie?” Mom asked, patting my shoulder.
“Sure. Just shocked.”
“It’s not a big deal. Your dad and I just needed a change.”
After she called Terrance my dad, I knew what was coming. My stepfather never passed up a teaching moment. “In case you’re wondering,” he said to Bodhi. “Breezie and I aren’t blood related.”
He loved the shock factor of that line. Every single one of my friends meeting him for the first time got the same ridiculous salutation. See, there was no reason for clarification because it was clear by the lily-white color of my skin and the chocolate brown flavoring of his that the two of us weren’t a perfect DNA match.
Holding back a snicker, I smacked my stepfather. “Must you.”
“What?” Terrance shrugged, grinning mischievously. “He seemed confused.”
“Bodhi, were you confused?”
“Not really, no.”
“There you have it.”
“She’s so testy,” Terrance whispered conspiratorially to my companion.
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever, Pops.”
“You know, Bodhi,” he said. “If there’s one thing I’ve learn from raising a daughter, it’s that there’s always a little ‘fuck you’ in every ‘whatever’.”
That got him a laughanda fist bump from a bona fide celebrity. My stepfather beamed with pride.
“So, what do you really think?” Mom asked, opening her arms to the new living space.
“It’s beautiful. It just doesn’t seem like you.”
She shrugged, appearing a little let down by my reaction. “The older I get, the more I appreciate functionality.”
Now I felt bad. Mom was looking for reinforcement not eye-popping shock. “I love it,” I said, embracing her.
My cell phone dinged so I pulled it from my pocket.
“Oh no, honey, that’s mine.” Mom held up a nearly identical phone, only hers was the newest model. “I just need to answer this text really quick.”
“You have a smart phone now? I can’t believe you swapped out that ancient flip phone? Whatever happened to ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’?”
“It broke.” Of course it did. “Besides, Breeze, I got tired of people thinking I was a time traveler.”
“Well, that was bound to happen.”
“And now, the best part is, I have all my apps at my fingertips.”
“Oh god, Mom, you’re blowing my mind. You have apps?” What was happening here? When had my earth mother, the woman who’d forgone carpools for the more eco-friendly ‘bikepools’ become the futuristic matriarch of the Jetsons?
“Oh my god, Daughter,” she mimicked me. “Stop acting like I’ve been abducted by aliens. So I like a little technology in my life. Big deal.”
Mom proceeded to snap a selfie of the two of us, and add the dog-ear filter before sending it off to cyberspace.
