Chet

I had outdone myself with the whole flowers thing. It had been so long since I had even thought twice about wooing a woman or how even to do it, but when I thought about Dahlia, the only thing I was sure of was that she deserved everything that I could give her. I wanted to make her feel as warm and as unique as she made me feel. I needed her to understand how much I wanted and cared about her. And that meant forcing my mother to acknowledge her as a potential match.

That Sunday, as I sat with her on the second-floor balcony, the one that overlooks our back lawn, I figured then was a time, if any, to discuss my feelings about Dahlia. As I read over the figures for the company, taking the downtime to do some of the reading the rest of the board assumed I didn’t do, I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. She was standing by the far left, her nose in a pot of daisies she had specifically asked for the week before. It was entirely out of character for her, but I gave her a pass. Even the most stone cold woman I knew was allowed to get into cliches every once in a while.

But as I gazed at her, I realized that this was more than just that. My mother was standing on the back porch, in the middle of the day wearing nothing but jeans and an oversized sweater that didn’t quite fit right. She looked even skinnier before my eyes, and I couldn’t deny the possibility that she was losing weight, which was frightening considering she had always bordered on anorexic. She wore no make-up and hadn’t done anything with her hair except for combing it back into a ponytail at the base of her neck.

“There isn’t a race today?” I asked, putting my binder down on the small table in front of me and picking up the long island iced tea.

She froze, looking at me, a brief blank expression, before understanding and coming to sit next to me. “I”m not in quite a mood to watch horses today.” She said as she picked up her book, The Face of War - Martha Gellhorn.

I shrugged. “Sure, if you say so.” And turned back to my binder.

Just when I thought this was going to be a relatively uneventful afternoon during which we did things together in each other’s mutual company, she cleared her throat. “So, how is Heather?”

I set my jaw. This again. “How should I know?”

She shrugged, not even bothering to look at me. “You should really find your wits and go after it. Your father married me within a year of our meeting.” Her voice broke at the mention of my father.

My blood boiled in the face of being compared to him. “Look, I spend the entire week being compared to that man by people who are practically strangers. I don’t need to come home and get it from you too.” I said, looking even more intently into my binder.

“Well, it makes sense. You are your father’s son.”

I grimaced. “I am myself.” It was hard not to sound like a petulant child when I was being treated like one.

“The bottom line is that you cant go galavanting around with young women anymore. You’re not 25. Look at the gray in your hair. I’m quite sure I even saw a white hair in your beard this morning.”

I white hair? What, did she have supervision?

“Great, I’m old. Thanks, mom.” At this point, I didn’t even know why I put up with being around her so much.

“Look, Heather just isn’t the one.”

She cocked her head at me. “But Chet, she’s perfect.”

I rolled my eyes. “Perfect for you. Perfect for the company. Perfect for the family. But not perfect for me. I thought I made that clear at the wedding.”

“Ah yes when you brought that, what’s her name?”

I scoffed. This whole old money-new money routine was getting frustratingly old. It was becoming apparent that the only thing that really made my Mom happy was judging other people. It didn’t matter so much to me when I was younger and saw pretty much everyone else as others, but now it was starting to bother me. “Her name is Dahlia, and she’s pretty fantastic.”

She rolled her eyes but kept her gaze deep in her book. “What does she do exactly, mend broken ankles for a living?”

I ducked my head in disbelief. “That is a gross understatement of what her job is like, but you seem to forget that it’s people like her who make the money you need for this expensive house and your lavish lifestyle. She keeps our team safe.”

“Oh please, I saw her at the last game. The only thing she does is slow Russy-boy down.”

Sometimes I felt like there had been a mistake at birth, and Russ was meant to be my parents’ son. They had always shown such a clear preference for him. It was sickening. “Oh, please. You can’t make a judgment on her until you give her a free chance.”

She raised her eyebrows at me. “Free chance for what?”

I threw my hands up in exasperation. It seemed that with my father gone she had all the availability in the world to agitate me. “You need to get to know her. Because I like her. And you have no control over this company or my life. Look, we’re all we’ve got left. So the sooner you understand that, the better we’ll be.”

Just as I had predicted, she went stone cold at the mere mention of my father’s death. In the last couple of months she had acted as if everything was wonderful, as if she hadn’t just lost her soulmate. As I watched her pour over that book, I wondered when she would finally snap.

***

Later that week was the day of the fated breakfast. Either my mom was going to come to terms with Dahlia as a potential permanence in my life, or she was going to fight it to her grave. I was resolved to go after Dahlia no matter what happened. But, for some reason, the thought of having a woman in my life that my mother disapproved of made me feel low. As I made my way down the front staircase to let Dahlia in, I wondered why we couldn’t just get along. I had dealt with it all my life, but now it was starting to bother me. Having Dahlia around made me feel everything so much stronger, sharper. All my inner demons were becoming impossible to ignore.

I opened the door, a smile spreading across my face at the sight of Dahlia on the other side of the threshold, her body draped in a cute, white dress, her hair lifted up into what looked like a complicated hairdo. “Good morning.”

She had put some pink gloss stuff on her lips, so I kissed her cheek, ushering her into my house.

She stepped in, “Hey you,” she said as she gazed up at the ceiling, her eyes wide with awe at the sight of the chandelier, the shiny marble floors, the paintings on the walls, all things I had become accustomed to since I had lived there practically my entire life.

“Is this office attire?” I asked as I led her through the front hall and around the corner to the sunroom, where my mom and I had breakfast every day.

She chuckled. “Nothing gets past you. No, this is just for now. I’m gonna change when I get to work.”

It warmed my heart to see how much effort she had obviously put into this. Wanting to impress my mother showed me that she cared about this becoming serious. Why else would she care what my mother thought? “But I loved you in those pinstripes,” I said, placing my hand on the small of her back. She smelled heavenly that morning. Her skin was so soft. It took everything in me not to just whisk her away upstairs and have my way with her, satisfying what I was sure were both of our urges.

My mother had already started taking her coffee, her head buried in that morning’s New York Times, a pair of readers hanging just at the tip of her nose. She glanced up as I opened the door, her gaze shifting from me to Dahlia and back again. I could hear the venom coming out of her as she sighed.

“Hello, Dahlia, is it?” She reached out her hand.

Dahlia plastered the biggest smile on her face she could muster, then took my mom’s hand. “Hi, Mrs. Blackwood. How are you this morning.”

She made a face. “As good as always, I suppose. Take a seat; they should be bringing out our breakfast at any moment now.”

Dahlia nodded, sitting in the seat in the middle of the table, which looked out onto the lawn and was directly between my mother and me. She huffed a breath. “May I?” She asked as she poured the coffee that had been sitting in a pot in the center of the table into her mug. She then added enough milk to turn it light brown and so much sugar; I wondered if she would even be able to taste the coffee after all of that. I hadn’t realized that’s how she drank it. But the action seemed so completely in character for her; it made me smile.

My mother made a face somewhere between surprise and disgust. “What on earth are you doing?”

Dahlia froze, terrified.

I felt the need to cut in. “Sorry, she just likes her coffee black.”

“Blackwoods drink their coffee black.” She said. “We would never dream of soiling the Columbian beans with whole milk from the farm down the street.”

I pursed my lips. “Her brother owned a coffee bean factory in South America. She takes it personally.”

Dahlia nodded, the look of confusion on her face slowly fading. She hesitated, but then lifted the cup to her mouth and took a sip anyway. “Well, it tastes fabulous,” She said, clearing her throat.

“I’m surprised you can even tell with all that milk,” my mom scoffed.

At that our butler came through with three plates of eggs benedict on his arm. It was my father, and I’s favorite breakfast meal, and because of that, we ate it quite a lot. “So, tell me about your work. How are you finding the team?” My mother asked in a very matter of fact voice.

Dahlia sat up straighter in her chair. “I think it’s fun. The games don’t feel like work. And I like being able to help them perform at their best.”

“So, I take it you don’t think practice is most important determinant for optimal performance.”

I held my breath.

But Dahlia was taking it like a champ. “Of course practice is important. But as a doctor, I can tell you that your body is its separate being. You can have all these intentions for it, but once you push it too far, it will quit on you, and if you keep trying to push it beyond that, it will fight you all the way.”

My mother let out a dry laugh. “Oh my dear, I have had my fair share of doctors tell me what’s good for me… for my husband… none of them were right.”

That was the first time she had mentioned my dad since the day of his funeral. I took a bite of my meal, letting the hollandaise sauce fill my mouth.

“Well, I’m sorry about that, but I don’t see what that has anything to do with- …”

“Are you scraping the egg off of your muffin?” She demanded.

I looked over at Dahlia’s plate, and, sure enough, she had deconstructed the whole thing.

Oh no.

Dahlia let out a nervous laugh. “I’m sorry I just don’t eat egg.”

My mother raised an eyebrow. “You don’t eat eggs?”

Dahlia nodded. “I’ve never liked them.”

My mom glowered at her plate. “Why didn’t you say something?”

Dahlia turned beet red. “I just didn’t- …” Oh no, she was mumbling.

My mom hated mumblers.

“Didn’t what? Speak up sweetheart.”

Dahlia flinched.

“She didn’t want to be rude, that’s all.” I cut in. I had to do something.

But my mom raised a hand. “What are you gonna speak for her? Blackwood women speak for themselves.”

My mother seemed to have forgotten the fact that she was the only Blackwood woman, in fact, the only Blackwood from her generation, still alive. Or maybe she did think of that, maybe it was the only thing she was thinking about.

Dahlia shook her head. “I’m sorry, I- …” she sounded breathless.

“And let me tell you something else.” My mom stood up. I had never seen her this hysterical in my entire life. “Here, in this house, in Dallas, we eat our eggs and we drink our coffee black, and we speak up for ourselves, and we let the players play!” Her voice went raw at the end.

I shot up. I couldn’t believe this, but I was embarrassed, mortified by my mother.

“Mother, please.”

“No. You brought her here it’s best she hears the truth. You think you can take your father’s company and his house and change everything? You think you can ruin his name, our team’s name, my name….” she was trembling, tears in her eyes.

I realized this had nothing to do with Dahlia at all.

But Dahlia was just sitting there, terrified.

“Well, I won’t have it. I won’t let you bring in some new money, a nurse from whatever no good town into my house. I won’t let you forget him like everyone else has.”

My eyes were wide, my heart pounding in my chest.

My mother shook her head as if coming to her senses. She glanced at me, then back at Dahlia, and then she disappeared down the hall.