If only dealing with my emotions regarding Axel could be that easy.
“What did you decide for dinner?” my mom asked as soon as I came back inside. She stood in the kitchen with her mug of coffee, and I couldn’t help but wonder how long she’d been standing there, or if she’d overheard my conversation with my dad.
“Meatloaf. It’s easy and one of my favorites.” I’d say I had tried to act normal around her, but there was no such thing. We’d gone over a month barely saying two words to each other, and then it was as if she decided to suddenly gift me with her kindness on my birthday. But now I knew so much more than I ever had about her, my dad, and their relationship. I wasn’t sure how to react to her now that her skeletons had been unveiled. I had just always assumed that my father had abandoned me because he didn’t care enough about me to remain in my life. Now I’d been hit with the news that he did care and had thought about me all these years. My mom had managed to assert the same control over him as she did over me. We were both prisoners in the hell my mom had created.
“Oh, that sounds good. Want me to make the glaze?” She immediately began to root through the cabinets for a bowl before pulling the ingredients from the fridge.
After watching her silently for a moment or two, I couldn’t hold back any longer. “Mom, this isn’t meant to be mean, but I have to ask…” I leaned my back against the counter so I could see her reaction. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
Her hands stilled around the spoon she’d grabbed to stir the glaze. “It’s your birthday, Bree,” she said as if her answer was a given and my question had been absurd.
I wanted to back down, leave it at that. Arguing would never solve anything, especially with her. But everything I’d been through over the last two weeks, all the emotional turmoil, I couldn’t find the strength needed to drop it. “Yes, you’re right, Mom, it is. However, this isn’t the first one. I’ve had sixteen others. You’ve never been like this for any of those.” I steadied my narrowed gaze at her, almost daring her to answer.
She huffed and then bit her lip. When her eyes settled on mine, she said, “I know. I guess realizing next year you’re going to be an adult has gotten to me. In one year from today, you won’t be my child anymore.”
A thought came to me that I should check her coffee, wondering if she’d added something extra to it. “Huh? I’m rather certain that no matter how old I am, I’ll still be your kid. It’s not like we reach a certain point and then no longer have parents.”
“That’s not what I mean.” But she never finished her thought. She never told me what she meant. Just dropped the conversation and went back to making the glaze for my meatloaf.
But I didn’t need to hear her tell me what she’d meant by it, because I already knew. It had nothing to do with not being her child anymore, and everything to do with her loss of control over me. She was a lawyer, and knew all too well that once I became a legal adult, I would be free to leave. She may have controlled my father and manipulated him, but she couldn’t do that with me. I didn’t need money to leave. I could apply to colleges, take out loans, and simply walk away. She had a marriage license and a bank account to keep my dad on a leash all those years…those didn’t pertain to me. That’s what she meant by losing her child in a year. She’d lose her control.
Without another word, I left the room. I grabbed a book from my room, the blanket from earlier, and went into the trees for some privacy. I needed space from everyone and everything. I wished I could’ve called Axel and talked to him about my dad’s phone call or my mom’s behavior, but I couldn’t. I had to learn how to deal with things all on my own again, much like I had before I met him. It made me laugh at the irony. I’d gone through life for almost seventeen years without anyone to lean on, and then I had him for less than a month. Somehow, in that short span of time, I’d become reliant on another person. Axel had become my habit, and I had to learn to break it, cold turkey.
I ended up spending hours outside, doing nothing but reading and keeping my mind occupied. I let myself get swept away in my book, forgetting reality and living within the pages of fiction. It was exactly what I needed, because by the time I finished, I found that I’d calmed down.
It was almost five in the evening before I pulled myself away from my forest and headed inside to start dinner. My mom was nowhere to be found when I walked through the back door, but I didn’t dare go search for her. She’d left the bowl of glaze in the fridge for me, and it made me think. It shouldn’t matter how selfish or twisted her reason was for the change in her attitude. All that mattered was that she had, in fact, changed her attitude toward me. I had a little over a year left in this house with her, and nothing would make that easier than to have her kindness—phony or not.
So as I made dinner, I found myself actually looking forward to sharing it with her. We’d gone from sitting around the table discussing my faults to not discussing anything at all. Awkward silence. And the thought of possibly having a normal conversation, a nice meal, and—if I were lucky—laughter made me excited.
After the timer on the oven sounded, I plated our meals and took them to the kitchen table, sitting in my seat to wait for her. I’d heard her bedroom door open and knew she’d be down soon. What I hadn’t expected was to find her coming downstairs dressed to go out.
“Where are you going?” I asked in shock.
“Some of the women from the office are meeting up for dinner.”
“But I thought we were eating meatloaf.”
She paused after pulling her coat on and stared at me. “Oh, no. I told you to make whatever you wanted because I wouldn’t be here. Just wrap it up and put it in the fridge. I’ll eat it tomorrow.”
I don’t know why I was surprised. Or why I felt pity for myself. But at that moment, it seemed as though I’d left my body and witnessed the exchange the way a stranger would. And as I watched myself, sitting alone at the kitchen table, two plates of food and an empty chair around me, my heart broke. It shattered for the young child within that had allowed herself to get her hopes up. The little girl that, against better judgment, looked forward to sharing her birthday dinner with her mother. I watched my shoulders slump, my head dip forward, and then the first drop of tears fell to my lap.
But I shouldn’t have felt bad for myself. I should’ve known better, expected it even. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to hope that things would change. Realizing that, I pushed away from the table and dried my eyes. I put the food away, not even bothering to eat any of it. My mom had left me to eat my own birthday dinner—one I had to make myself—alone. So, I would celebrate on my own as well.
I pulled out a cup from the cabinet and opened the door to the fridge, not even bothering to take the box of wine out before pulling on the tab and filling my glass. I didn’t put too much thought into my decision. But I knew it wasn’t for attention since no one was around, and it wasn’t even because I liked the taste of wine because I’d never had it before. I only wanted the pain to stop. I wanted the insecurities to go away and for the resentment to settle. I didn’t want to cry, I didn’t want to think about how everything had been flipped upside down, and I didn’t want to dwell. I simply wanted my mind to go blank.
So I took my large glass of wine that sent a shiver through me with every sip and sat on the couch. I watched whatever was on the television, not paying much attention to it, and drank. I poured myself a little more after enjoying the tingles it gave me, appreciating the way my head grew fuzzy instead of heavy. I loved how it put a smile on my face and caused me to find everything on TV amusing. It was like magic.