Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 140874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
“How was Iceland?” she asked right away. “Was everybody nice to you?”
She’d asked me the same thing after my first day of kindergarten. I had to smile. “Everyone was great. Neil’s family is really nice. I’m actually calling because I have some news.”
“Oh?” The sudden high, tight pinch to my mom’s voice clued me in that she might know what was coming.
“Neil asked me to marry him.” This felt more awkward than I’d expected it to feel. “And I said yes.”
There was a split second of silence. Then she said, “Honey, that’s great.”
“Is it?” Suddenly, I wanted her approval about this more than anything.
“No! You’re way too young. What were you thinking?” she shrieked.
“I was thinking that my boyfriend, whom I love very much, proposed to me, because he loves me so much that he wants to make that love legally binding in public.” My back teeth gritted so hard, I swore I could hear the enamel shearing. “I guess I was thinking, ‘wow, we’re perfect for each other, and I’m incredibly happy.’”
“Let me guess, he made some grand romantic gesture on a boat or something? Some textbook move like putting the ring in a glass of champagne?” She made an impatient noise. “Sophie, you are twenty-five years old. That stuff might work on you now, but ten years down the road—”
“He proposed to me on New Year’s Eve. A little bit before midnight. We had just come from Christmas with his family, we were in our PJs and exchanging gifts with each other alone,” I interrupted. Like hell I’d let my own mother paint me as some stereotypical vapid child-woman who’d say yes to anything, so long as there was a yacht involved. “There was no grand gesture. He didn’t even get down on one knee, and the ring didn’t fit. I know you desperately want this to not be a thing, but it’s a thing. You can either deal with it, or—” Go fuck yourself, my brain finished for me, but I decided to end with a stuttered, “—n-not.”
“How can I deal with this? You’ve never introduced me to a boyfriend before, and suddenly, it’s ‘here’s this middle-aged man I’m dating, and by the way we’re getting married.’ You can’t just keep dropping this shit in my lap!”
“This shit? This is my life, Mother!” I realized how loud I was and lowered my voice. “And if you want to continue to be a part of it, then I don’t care how you deal. But you have to.”
“I know!” Mom sighed. “Do you think I don’t know that? I’ve been with you through all your twists and turns.”
Oh, Mom. I had to admit, I occasionally felt bad for her. When she’d had me, she’d had no idea what she was getting into. I’d always been headstrong, even as a child, and my wants had hardly ever lined up with hers. But this wasn’t an argument over an Easter dress or my curfew. I couldn’t compromise to keep her happy. “Then don’t give up on me on this one.”
I had her, and I knew it. She was silent for a long time before she said, “You know I’m not entirely comfortable with your situation. But if you’re happy, I’m gonna try to be happy for you. You just have to give me a little bit to warm up.”
“I am happy.” I took a huge gulp of air in relief. “Neil and I are really good together, Mom. You just have to get to know him better.”
“I don’t suppose I have a choice now.” There was a pause. “So. No grandkids then?”
“Sorry.” Even if I had wanted kids, it was pretty much a non-issue, now that Neil had gone through so much chemotherapy.
“Well, Marie’s kids will have babies, and they’ll probably need a sitter some of the time.” There was Mom’s always-looking-on-the-bright-side attitude. “I really will be happy for you. Even if I’m not the world’s biggest Neil fan—”
“I think I have that covered.”
“—I know he loves you. Because every day when you two were out, I cut another spring in that sofa bed frame, and he never once complained,” Mom said with no small amount of pride at her own craftiness. I wasn’t entirely sure why she believed that proved anything, other than the fact that she was a total nutjob.
“That’s horrible!” I scolded. “What is this, a white trash community theatre version of Once Upon a Mattress?”
“It’s a mother looking out for her daughter,” Mom insisted, and I had to bite my cheek to keep from pointing out that if anyone needed looking out after, it was a crazy woman who went sick house on her own sofa bed with a pair of wire cutters to prove some demented point.
But I had to love that she was willing to go to furniture-wrecking lengths over my happiness.