June 2012
“So, how is the happy couple?”
I took a long drink of my lemonade and smiled softly. “We’re good.”
“Oh, Victoria, don’t blush,” my mother said as she rifled through the pictures. “You’re married now.”
Married.
Just a few days ago, Wes and I returned from our honeymoon. We spent two wonderful weeks in Paris. It was amazing to relax and spend every waking moment together without a care in the world. We left our worries behind the second we stepped into the plane. Even though we were home now, back to work and settling into a routine, there was still this electric charge around us. I watched the clock constantly while I was on shift, counting down the hours and minutes until I could see him again.
“Look at this one.” My mother pushed a picture toward me. “I love this picture of you.”
I picked it up and stared at myself. I looked so happy. “I love it too.”
“Can you get it in an eighteen-by-twenty-four?”
“Mom, there’s a whole other stack that you haven’t gone through.”
“Doesn’t matter. That one’s my favorite. I can already tell.”
My mother was on cloud nine. She was the quintessential wife, born in the wrong era. When women were burning bras and fighting for equal rights, she was dreaming up the kind of family she’d have. And she got it: husband, son, and daughter. The perfect family. She loved living a hidebound life and she expected me to want the same thing. She looked at my years in college as some act of rebellion, as though it were some terrible black smear on my life record. She didn’t understand why I wasn’t willing to enjoy the imprimatur of married life. I didn’t understand why she didn’t recognize that I was already happy with what I had.
But marrying Wes put a fresh coat of white paint on that smear.
I continued to skim through the photos, smiling at every single shot. My mother was pickier. With her glasses perched on her nose, she would peer carefully at a photo, muttering underneath her breath: “Who is that person? Why would I want a picture of a stranger?”
“Oh! This one is gorgeous!” She held up the picture. I leaned forward to get a better look. It was a black-and-white close-up of Wes and me. He was kissing my cheek, while my eyes were closed, head slightly shifted to the left. “I want this one too.”
I held up the previous photo. “You just said that you didn’t need to see the rest because this one is your favorite.”
She shrugged. “I changed my mind.”
She continued to flip through each photograph but it was hard for me to focus. I looked out into my mother’s immaculate backyard. A gardener trimmed the shrubs in the distance. The sprinklers went on. Beads of water were suspended in air before they fell to the ground. Directly off the deck was a pool with clear, blue water that sparkled in the sun.
I could count on one hand the number of times the pool and backyard have been used. My mother, she’s a collector—gathering beautiful people and things around her, but never really using them. She was born into the echelons of the elite and never had to work for a thing. She’s vivacious and outgoing. She goes from one event to the next and when there’s no event, she creates one. As a child I used to watch her in awe; she was so different from me. I was okay sitting back and living in my imagination.
But for all her outgoing ways, she was never a hands-on parent. She watched from the sidelines: always there but a few steps away. I think it had to be that way. She was always on the lookout, always protecting me and my older brother, Mitchell. My father died when I was seven.
“Now that you two have settled in, when are you going to give me a grandchild?”
I choked on my lemonade. “Grandchild? We’ve barely been married for a month!”
The look on my mother’s face said: And your point is?
“Babies are in the distant future,” I elaborated. “Like, light-years away distant.”
“Victoria, all I’m saying is that pretty soon you’ll be dreaming of pink and blue onesies. It’ll be all you can think about. Plus, babies make everything wonderful.”
“So does alcohol but that doesn’t mean I should run out and start drinking,” I said smartly, a cheeky smile on my face.
My mother didn’t look amused. “I’m being serious right now.”
“I know, I know.”
All kidding aside, I did want kids. I wanted two girls. I could see myself loving on them as babies, wiping runny noses, breaking up fights when they were young, and handing out curfews when they were teenagers. I had all these waiting memories on hold for my future kids. But that was the thing: Those memories were in waiting and I had no desire to reach for them now.
I reached across the table and held my mother’s hand. “It’s not happening right now.”
She shook her head. “Well, that’s disappointing.”
“I’m not saying it’s not in the cards. I want a family. But right now I want to enjoy my husband. I’m selfish and I want him all to myself.” I smiled. “Can’t I be selfish just for a moment?”
My mother smiled back. “Of course you can. Of course.” We slipped back into a silence, scanning the photos, when my mother spoke up once again. “I forgot what it’s like in the beginning.”
I lifted my head. “Huh?”
She leaned forward and ground the butt of her cigarette into the ashtray. “Oh, you know…fresh love. Newlywed life.” She sighed and tilted her head back so the sun shined down on her. “It’s a beautiful time.”
“It is,” I agreed softly.
During our honeymoon, Wes and I made promises to each other. On how the future would be and how we would do things right. In a few years, we would break ground and build our dream house. If we had an argument we would work things out and we would never go to bed angry. We had plans and I was determined to keep every single one.
I glanced back at my mother and realized that she had been talking this entire time. “…And then you’ll have a family and house like the one you grew up in.” She gestured to the English, country-style monstrosity of a house beside us. Growing up in this house had been like growing up in a maze. I constantly found new places and dead ends. I think my active imagination was born from this place. There was such a wide age gap between my brother and me and on the days where my friends couldn’t come over and play, I would create imaginary friends. They never complained. Or fussed. To them, all my games and ideas were brilliant.
If only imaginary friends stuck with you during adulthood. Maybe then things wouldn’t be so rough.
I didn’t know why she still lived here. I moved out after college and my brother had left three years before me. I suppose she stayed here for the memories. I know she wanted the same for me but I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I had no desire to have a home so big that I could get lost inside it.
“What are you two talking about?”
At the sound of Wes’s voice I turned around. He shut the patio door behind him and smiled at me. His black dress shirt was tucked into an equally dark pair of slacks. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. Sunlight reflected off the watch strapped around his left wrist. He came up behind me, his hands curving around my shoulders. My head rested against the hard muscles of his stomach.
“Oh, nothing,” my mother answered breezily. “Just talking about how lucky you are to have my daughter.”
Wes grabbed a chair and pulled it up next to me. He gave me that signature smirk of his. The one that pulled me under and never let go. “I’m lucky, all right.”