MAGGIE

“I really don’t think it’s a good idea that you’re spending so much time with him.” My mother leans back at the tidy little breakfast nook in her kitchen. “How will that look to everyone else?”

I scowl, reaching for a scone which prompts another look of annoyance from my mother. “I don’t care what others think.”

“Apparently not,” she says, “or you wouldn’t be reaching for your third scone.”

There used to be a day when I would’ve put it back, when I would’ve valued my mother’s opinions more than anything in this world, but that day has passed. It passed the day she cut me out of her life when I told her I was having a baby.

Apparently, what others thought had been so damn important she hadn’t wanted to be involved with a daughter who’d gotten pregnant out of wedlock. My dad, had he been alive, would have supported me. He would’ve been the only person who could’ve changed my mother’s mind—he’d always been the only person to make her laugh, to see the light side of dark days—but unfortunately, he’d passed away several years before of a heart attack.

Eventually, after Mila’s birth she’d come around—somewhat. Even my mother had her limits, and she’d realized that if she continued to freeze me out of her life, she wouldn’t know Mila. For the sake of her granddaughter, she’d let me back in, and I returned, grudgingly cautious.

“No,” my mother says, daintily slicing her scone into eighths before applying the slightest dollop of lemon curd to it. “You have never cared what others think.”

“Is this why you called me over here this morning?”

“Can’t I have breakfast with my daughter for no reason?”

“Most people can,” I mutter. “I’m still scratching my head about what you need from me.”

“I don’t need anything, Margaret,” she snaps. “I’m your mother. Have some respect.”

It’s harder than I want to admit to keep my mouth shut, and the only way I can go about it successfully is to butter up that scone and shove it into my mouth. My mother watches with disdain.

“If you know what’s good for you,” she says, eventually opening up the argument again. “You’ll stay away from Tyler and keep Mila out of it, too.”

“It’s my business what I do with my daughter, thank you very much. And who I spend time with, for that matter, as well. I don’t have to explain myself,” I say with faux patience. “But if it’d make you feel better, you should know it’s just business. Tyler and his daughter are staying at the inn, and it’s my job to make them feel welcome.”

“Is it your job to take them to the apple orchard?” She sounds too innocent. “What about shopping?”

I glower at her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. It was for the girls.”

“Fine. That still doesn’t explain why Mrs. Larson saw you cuddled up against Tyler’s chest,” she says, leaning forward as her voice descends into a hiss. “She said you kissed him.”

My heart is pumping, but I refuse to let my embarrassment win out. “Where I plant my lips is my business.”

My mother inhales a sharp breath. “Watch your mouth.”

“What did I say?”

She squints at me, unhappy. “I thought you were past this phase.”

“What phase is that?”

“I thought you were done looking for boys to fool around with. You’ve done that. Obviously.”

It stings every time she brings up my relationship with Mila’s father. I would’ve married him if he’d asked, for Mila’s sake, but the question never came up. What we’d had could never be called a relationship in any true sense of the word.

“I didn’t come here for this,” I say quietly. “I will not discuss it. When I let you back into my life, into Mila’s life, we agreed to let the past be the past and start fresh. This year, things have been feeling less and less fresh, and I will have no part in it.”

“You’re supposed to learn from the past, Margaret,” she warns. “And if you stumble down that same road, I’m sure as hell going to bring it up.”

My mother never swears, so this little slip is a sure sign she’s furious. I don’t care; I can’t. We had an agreement, and she’s breaking it.

I push my chair back and stand. “With all due respect, I’m going to leave now. When you’re ready to move on from this topic, you know where to find me.”

“Don’t you walk away from me, Margaret!”

I slip my light pink coat on, a dressier thing than I normally wear for a school drop off morning, but something I’d put on to make my mother happy, along with the little black dress underneath. My mother thinks yoga pants are sloppy, and I didn’t feel like giving her more ammunition against me today.

“If you’re not going to think about yourself,” she shoots after me, “think about Mila. If she really is becoming friends with that little girl, what’s going to happen when Tyler yanks her back to the city?”

I freeze, knowing there’s a double meaning to my mother’s inquiry. Yes, Mila’s feelings are a concern, but so are mine. My mother must sense my heart is close to getting involved, or she wouldn’t be so furious with me. When my heart is involved, I make bad choices—the track record has spoken.

When I don’t answer, she tries another angle. “What is he doing here, anyway? Have you asked him that?”

“Of course I have,” I snap, but I don’t follow up because I have nothing to say. I’ve asked Tyler a time or two what it is he does, and he always has some piddly answer. I own things, he’ll say. I buy and sell things. As if I can’t understand more than that.

I know he has plenty of money—that much is obvious. What he actually does is a much foggier question that he likes to avoid.

“You can walk out on me, but you know what I’m saying is true.” My mother’s words follow me down the steps. “You’re not a girl anymore, Margaret. You’re a woman and a mother, and you can’t indulge every one of your whims any longer.”

I turn, my furious gaze focused on her. There are no words that I need to say in order for her to catch my drift.

“A man should support his family,” she says, implying Tyler doesn’t do that. “He should work and provide for them, not sit around and diddle himself all day.”

I gape at her language. My mother is in rare form today, and it’s all I can do not to break down and laugh. “Tyler doesn’t diddle himself all day, mother.”

“Then what does he do?” she presses. “Does he go out in the morning and earn a living for his family? Can he provide for you and Mila?”

“I provide for me and Mila,” I say, the volume rising as we reach the crux of the issue. “We don’t need someone to come in and swoop us off our feet.”

“Sometimes, it’s nice to be swooped.” My mother says this bit quietly, and it’s completely out of character for her.  “But there has to be something to follow up the whirlwind. Otherwise, it’ll leave you in pieces. Again.”

I freeze right there on the spot, wondering if this is my mother’s way of offering me sympathy. If it’s her olive branch in trying to test out offering motherly advice for once, or if it’s something else entirely.

I don’t have time to puzzle through it all now, however. My phone jars both of us to attention. I glance down at the number there, recognize the school line, and offer my mother a goodbye.

The door is already slamming in my face.