Because I can’t go to my room and I can’t get away from her in this wretched leftover of an apartment, I put on my shoes. Then I go out and simply stand in the hallway, because despite Rafe telling me I always run away, I have nowhere to go.
33
Hua Jingjing
Qing dynasty. Jingjing traded a moli perfume to Jesuit missionary and painter Giuseppe Castiglione in exchange for a portrait of her daughter.
Heart note //Enhance generosity in others
Base note //Ylang-ylang
“Where’s your mom?” asks Ana when I come in the day after The Fight.
“She had to go back to Vancouver.”
Ana frowns. “Oh, too bad. She was fun. You’re lucky to have a mom who understands what you do. Every time I talk about the store, mine looks like she’s sucking a lemon.”
I give a noncommittal hum and go to the back room, glad my melting mascara gives me an excuse for looking terrible. It’s raining today, and although I had an umbrella, my feet are soaked. I should have taken the TTC, but I couldn’t deal with being crammed in with a group of damp people dripping everywhere. I was in no mood for extra aggravation after seeing Mom off in a cab this morning.
I was rethinking the fight and considering possibly apologizingfor my part in it, but she came out already dressed to tell me her flight to Vancouver was leaving in four hours and there was no need for me to see her to the airport. That was all I needed to know, and it wiped out my regret instantly. It was clear that without access to my moli—officially—she was done here and ready to go back to her true love, Yixiang.
That was it. No mention of our fight. No resolution or closure. I felt as if I should say something, but I didn’t know what, so I accepted her embrace and walked her out.
She didn’t look back as the cab pulled away, but I didn’t stop waving until it was out of sight.
***
That night I go to Rafe’s place when I’m done working. I didn’t tell him about Mom when he texted earlier, and kept the chat to small things about the day that had made me feel better, but now I want the big guns of consolation. I was the one who buried the hatchet with her right before I found out about the betrayal. I did what he’d thought I should to fix my relationship with Mom and get to the bottom of my moli. He has to be on my side. After all, she’s the one who left, not me.
Rafe answers the door immediately—do men ever bother with the peephole?—and looks at me with concern. He’s in comfy sweats that make him look cuddly and warm. I want to bury my face in his chest and surround myself with the tobacco smell I always associate with him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Mom.”
He opens the door wider and gestures me in. “What happened?”
My eyes are dry, which surprises me, and I tell him the whole story with the succinctness of an executive assistant reporting to a demanding boss. My mother’s sneakiness. The nerve of her. Thenthe final kicker, that after all that, my moli hadn’t worked. Would that scene have happened if it had? I don’t know. I want it to be yesterday, when I was with Mom and felt good for once.
Rafe takes my hand. “Do you think you’re being a bit hard on her?” he asks.
This is so not what I expected that I laugh. “No? She lied to get money for Yixiang when I explicitly said no.”
Rafe moves a shiny black pepper shaker in the shape of a movie camera along the table, brow furrowed as he thinks. “Your mom only wants to help,” he says. “She didn’t go about it in the best way, but she—”
How can he say that? “Stop. Stop now. That isn’t the point. She went behind my back when I told her not to do anything to test those samples.”
“She shouldn’t have done that, but have you considered she had no choice?”
I’m almost speechless, but not completely. “What are you saying? Of course she did.”
“She came here wanting to help you because you refused to talk to her. Then you wouldn’t try to get to the bottom of the problem. You knew how important it was to her and to your family.”
“Rafe,enough. You’re supposed to be on my side.” I glare at him. “Remember? Supportive?”
“This is supportive, because you need to hear this. Your mother is right. She has done everything to try to reconcile with you, and you’re acting like the same child you were when you left, lashing out and refusing to see how you cause most of your own problems.”
I am truly and honestly shocked he’s turned this on me. “What?” My hand comes up to my throat like a damsel in distress, but I shake it off as my dismay turns to betrayal for the second time in two days. I was sure Rafe would be on my team, and that finally, he was the one I could count on when nothing else went my way.
