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Be selfish
MIA
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TWO DAYS LATER, right on Penny’s schedule, I go home. She was a blur of activity, taping up boxes, slapping on labels. She even helped me load everything into my car and carry it all into the local post office.
My place has never looked better. She helped me declutter drawers, clean out closets, donate things to Goodwill. It’s still colorful and busy and bright, it’s just not cluttered. I feel... lighter.
But now, it’s time to go home. I can’t keep hiding from Mom and Dad forever.
It isn’t fair.
Dad’s in his office when I get there.
“Where’s Mom?”
He glances up from his computer, an irritable scowl on his face. “She just got in. Probably in the kitchen or her room.”
“Where was she?”
He shrugs, still staring at his computer screen. He looks... almost alarmed.
I hesitate in the doorway. “You okay, Dad?”
He nods, then sends me a distracted look. Then it’s like he actually sees me. “We missed you at Christmas. What’s going on, peanut?”
There are things you just don’t tell dads. Stranger and our torrid affair is definitely one of them. “I’m fine.”
He narrows his eyes, tilts his head like he has since I was a little girl. “You can talk to me... you know, if you need to.”
I pat the door jam. “I know Dad, thanks.”
When I leave, he’s staring back at his computer again, and I can’t help but wonder about the transfers mentioned in Stranger’s file. What was that for?
I find Mom, in the mudroom, sneaking up the back steps. She looks like she fell off the front page spread of Golf Weekly magazine, all glowing and happy, her hair pulled back in a careful, fluffy ponytail.
My heart sinks.
My whole life Dad, Danny and I went golfing, while Mom stayed behind and did something else. Usually she read a book, or went out to lunch, got a massage, spent some time on her own, but she never came.
Golf was always Dad’s thing. He tried. He asked a million times if she’d come. There’s no shame, hon. Everyone is bad when they start. Never too late to learn.
But she’d never come.
So why now? Is she having an affair? Was Stranger right?
“Mom?”
She jumps when she sees me and freezes half way up the back steps like a cartoon villain. “Oh, Mia! You scared the hell out of me.”
I swallow. “Why are you wearing golf clothes?”
She makes a face. “Don’t you dare tell your father. I’ve kept this secret for over a year!”
I suck in a breath. “What would I even tell him?”
“That I was golfing,” she whispers.
“It’s the middle of winter. Where would you golf?”
“Lower your voice.” She holds her finger over her mouth. “He can’t see me dressed like this, it would spoil everything. I’ll be right back. Go wait in the kitchen.”
She skulks up the steps, and I head in to wait for her.
I get out two glasses and fill them with water, slouch into the counter stools and wait.
“You swear you won’t tell him?” she hisses a few minutes later, when she comes back wearing her more normal attire of black pants and an ivory sweater.
“Are you having an affair?”
She freezes mid stride, her mouth dropping. “Where in the world did you get that idea?”
I study her face. Mom doesn’t lie. At least, I don’t think she does.
I realize suddenly how little I actually know my parents. They’re a unit. Like I just pigeon-holed them at some date in my childhood and never saw them as anything else.
Mom is just Mom to me. The woman who didn’t like romance novels and liked Jeremy and expected me to act a certain way. She wasn’t a woman with a distinct personality all her own.
And same with Dad. I saw him as just... my dad.
I pick up the water. “Seriously, Mom. Just tell me, are you cheating on Dad?”
“No.” She sends me a hurt look. “I wanted to surprise all of you. Danny too. I thought maybe if he came out this summer, when you all went golfing, I’d surprise you at the club by joining in. I’ve been taking lessons. The club got this indoor simulation. It’s like a computer game, but I swing a real club.”
I try to picture that and fail. “Why?”
“The cruise. Your dad always wants to golf when we go on vacations, but he doesn’t love joining other groups or going alone. He always wants me to go. So I’ve been taking lessons for the last year.” Her eyes stare into mine, that hurt look making my stomach clench with shame that I doubted her. “I’ve been learning so I can play with him.”
See.
I want to call Stranger on the phone, shout at him that not everyone is a horrible liar. Sometimes people have secrets that hurt no one. Like me and Danny and Penny and Mom.
We have our secrets, but they’re innocent.
Not like him. Or maybe like him?
I don’t even know his secrets.
Mom’s staring at me like I just peed on her carpet.
Might as well get it all out there. “I got a tattoo.”
She doesn’t even blink, so I turn around, and tug my sweater down so she can see my back.
If she sees it, she doesn’t say anything. “I just want you to be happy, Mia. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Me too. I take a long deep breath. I’ve only ever really truly been happy with Stranger. I don’t know if it was real, though.
“I was proud of you with Penny, Mom.”
“What did you expect? Me to spit on her?’
“I don’t know. I didn’t think you liked her.”
She finishes her water. “I didn’t like her because I thought she was lying to Danny, not because I’m some heartless ogre who can’t sympathize with a woman who lost her family as a kid. It’s like you don’t know me, Mia. Thinking I’d cheat on your dad. Keeping your writing from me? Not telling me about Jeremy? Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe it’s time you practice trusting people.”
I stare at her face. It’s like looking into the future, we look so much alike. She just has a few more lines on her face, a little more wear. I hope someday I look like her. She’s still beautiful.
All this time I thought the problem was that I’d been too trusting. But maybe she’s right. I kept everyone at arm’s distance, not trusting them to accept me as a writer.
“Annie says I’m being selfish ending it with Jer.”
Mom laughs. “I’d expect better from a woman who just had kids. She knows the truth. Before you have kids is the last time in your life you get to be selfish. Once you’re married, once you have a baby, your selfish days are gone. You be selfish, Mia. This is your time. You decide who you want to spend your whole life with.”
I take a deep breath.
“Is that this internet man?”
Maybe? If he’s got a decent explanation. Maybe I owe it to both of us to ask him.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Can I borrow a phone charger?”