Seastead, Tahiti
the guest room with three tennis outfits. She held one up toward Bella and laid the others across the day lounge. “Here. These should fit. I can’t help you with a sports bra though.” Lena smiled. “You have my height, but somehow you ended up with Tia Emelina’s curves.”
Ignoring her mother’s comment, Bella said, “Mom, when did we become rich?”
“What are you talking about?”
Bella swept her hand in a half-circle. “This place? You don’t seem to work anymore. Jonathan, Cindy and Sophie are going to fancy private schools. The travel. Tennis? Did I miss out on the memo?” She fell backward onto the soft bed. “I tell people I grew up on a smelly fish farm in the middle of the Pacific. I thought we were poor!”
Lena laid down on the bed beside her and matched Bella’s gaze into the center of a slow-moving ceiling fan high overhead. “It was a smelly fish farm in the middle of the Pacific. A well-managed one. Your father had the fisheries training, technical skills, and the vision. I had the cellular biology. Aquaculture outposts that drifted in the deep oceans were a new concept, and we were pioneers.” Lena paused in thought. “You and your siblings were the best things we grew out there but not the only thing. Besides millions of pounds of protein, we grew our reputation and our brand. We learned how to make it work and then did consulting work. We’d get paid in cash, gold, cybercurrency, and sometimes a start-up company would offer us stock options. Like all farmers, we saved for a rainy day.”
“This place. It must have cost a fortune.” Bella regretted her tone. She had hoped for a benign statement, but it came out as an accusation.
“Your father made some excellent investments. This condo is a good example. Uncle Jon was on the board when this seastead started. It was the year we harvested all those shipping containers and Jon helped with selling off the salvage. We didn’t know what to do with the unexpected windfall, so Jon helped. This was one place he suggested and then he managed it for us.”
“That’s why I’ve never been here before. You rented it to someone else?”
“It’s been a steady income property since we bought it.” She pushed closer to Bella. “We could never afford to keep it for our own use until Blue Permaculture—or how did you put it?—the smelly fish farm attracted a buyer. That changed everything.”
Bella sat up on one shoulder and looked at her mother with a puzzled expression. “Mom, that happened when I was”—she took a second to do the math—“sixteen! You made me earn money each year to pay for my part of our family vacation. School—I had to pay for all my education. I was always working.” She lay back on the firm bed with her arms extended and a pout on her face.
Lena got up and stood over her with hands on her hips and said, “Are you saying you regret the way we raised you?” With a hint of defensiveness added, “Would you rather we spoiled you?”
“No, Mom. I’m surprised. That’s all. I’m glad I have a work ethic.” Bella exhaled. “I still have student debt, you know?” She was flustered, but it was too late to take back her words.
“Jonathan and Cindy do, too. There is nothing wrong with working off your debt. It keeps things real. When something comes easy, the value diminishes. You have a solid degree that’s provided well for you. You’re productive and have something to offer the world. If we gave you everything, you might have joined the throngs crying in the streets for handouts from the government.”
“I’m sorry I’m pushing your hot buttons, but I’m just trying to figure things out.” Bella squirmed off the bed and sat on the plush carpeted floor.
Lena sat on the floor beside Bella. “I never realized you thought we were poor.”
“It never crossed my mind when I was a kid. I thought the way we lived was normal. Dad fixing everything. Again and again. I thought all dads walked around with a tool belt and a portable welder.” She leaned her head into her mother’s lap and looked up at her and smiled. “Mom, we were so weird.”
Lena inhaled sharply. “Weird barely scratches the surface.” She stroked back her daughter’s hair. “Are you all right?”
“Remember when you left Dad and me?”
“I left your Dad. You stayed. Remember?”
“I’m just trying to figure out how much I’m like you. What made you come back? How did you ever make your marriage work after leaving?”
“Hold on there, girl. This is a pretty sensitive subject to be firing questions at me like that. You sound like an FBI agent.”
They both laughed.
“You told me you’d always be honest with me about it. Now I’m curious.”
“Okay but answer one thing. Why now?”
Bella had thought she had cried out all her tears in the last few days, but her dark brown eyes welled up.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Gregory. I broke up with him. I left. He asked me to marry him, and I left.”
Lena hugged her daughter. “I’m sorry, honey.”
“It’s not that. I don’t love him.”
“Then what is it?”
“I think he wants to hurt me.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He won’t answer my calls and ignores any texts. But look.” She pulled off her watch, tapped it a few times and handed it to her mother. It was a picture of the handwritten note next to a very large diamond ring.
All the blood drained out of her mother’s face. Even her healthy tan could not hide the ghost white beneath the surface.