Sammy’s eyes soften. “You don’t have to do that for me, Mami. I’m a grown man. You can seek your own happiness now.”
“Oh, I don’t mean you,” Mebel says with a flippant wave of her hand. “Like you said, you’re a grown man. For the girls. Freydis, Aelgifu, and Luciana.”
“I really don’t think—”
“They can’t grow up in a broken home.”
“I’m not sure that having divorced grandparents counts as being from a broken home?” Sammy says.
“Don’t be ridiculous, of course it does. And don’t say the D-word around me, Sammy.”
“I’m sorry, Mami,” Sammy says quickly. “I should’ve known it would be triggering to you.” The word “triggering” is said in English, and it catches Mebel off guard.
“What does that mean, ‘triggering’? Like I’ve been shot?”
“It means it’s a word that triggers a lot of emotions for you. A word that isn’t just a simple word, but one that carries a lot of bad feelings and memories.”
Mebel nods, filing the word away for later use. “Yes, I suppose you are right. The D-word is…triggering. But once I win your father back, it won’t be, because we won’t be getting one. In fact, what we’ll do is celebrate—oh! We can renew our vows! Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Nothing too fancy, we’ll keep it intimate, just send out one thousand invitations, so with their plus-ones, it’ll be two thousand guests max.”
“I think you’re getting a bit carried away, Mami. Why don’t you ask Tante Meimei out for lunch?”
“Meimei?” Mebel cries. “That she-demon will tell the entirety of Jakarta that your father is leaving me!”
“Okay…or maybe any of your many, many friends? I’m sure some of them will be empathetic. I know you housewives are all about presenting the image of a perfect marriage to everyone, but I would bet money that many of them are hiding things that are much worse than what Papi has done.”
Mebel ignores Sammy’s patronizing tone of voice. “Aiya, this is not the time to think of socializing. This is the time to plan. I will have that designer Kris make me a gown, she’s all the rage right now. Oh, I should call her now and let her know I’ll need a gown from her; she’s booked up for the next six months, you know.” She looks around for her cell phone and spots it on the kitchen counter, but before she can take it, Sammy practically pounces on it. As Mebel watches, dumbfounded, he holds it behind his back. “What are you doing, son? Let me have my phone.”
“No.”
“Sammy!” she snaps.
“Mami,” he begins, then he takes a deep breath, as though fortifying himself, “I cannot let you do this again. You’re always doing this.”
“Doing what?”
Sammy gestures at her. “This! You go on a wild tangent and get carried away without thinking of the consequences. I mean, you’re about to have a gown made for a vow renewal—” He pauses, sighing with visible frustration. “Did you forget that you haven’t won Papi back?”
“Oh, well, that’ll happen.”
“How?”
Mebel shrugs. Irritation mounts up inside her. “I’ll figure it out. Now kindly give me back my phone and—”
“No, Mami. If you’re going to win Papi back, you need an actual plan. You can’t just sit back and do your trophy wife thing and trust that other people will take care of it for you.”
He might as well have slapped her across the face. For a moment, Mebel blinks at her son, stupefied. Then the anger comes, a trickle at first, but it doesn’t take long before it turns into a rush. “Do my ‘trophy wife thing’?” she hisses. “Do you really think that lowly of me? Do you know how much I’ve done for you?”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Sammy says. “I just meant, like, when it comes to the big, important things, you’re used to letting Papi handle them. You always said the man is the head of the household and the wife’s job is to follow along.”
And, unfortunately, Mebel knows this is true. She has been fed on a steady diet of traditional gender roles, and she has turned around and fed Sammy the same thing.
“Mami,” Sammy says gently, “I think you need to listen to what Papi wants. If he wants to have a divorce, then…” He raises his hands and shrugs. “Unless you have an idea of how to keep him around?” Sammy waits a moment for her to reply, and when she doesn’t, he gives her a small, pitying smile, and says, “See? Papi has always been the ideas person in the house. He knows what he’s doing. I think we need to trust him on this.”
How dare her own son talk to her like this! Mebel has half a mind to smack him with one of her very expensive Le Creuset pans (which she has never once used, but she likes knowing that she could use them if she wanted to). The anger surges through her veins, pounding in her head, heating up her entire body until she feels like she might explode. The answer blurts out before her mind has time to catch up. “I’ll go to cooking school!”
“What?”
The moment Mebel hears those words, she realizes she’s right. That’s exactly it. Her eyes light up with righteous flame. “Yes, that’s it! That’s what he wants, isn’t it? A wife who can cook. That’s the entire reason he’s off with Wendy.”
