The Marriage Contract (Anderson Brothers)

“Hello, Mother,” I said.

“Chloe?” my mother asked on the other end, surprised to hear me. “I should have known you would run off to see Hannah.”

“What do you need?” I asked, cutting her off and apparently doing no good whatsoever. Hannah walked ahead a little and got to the car, unlocking it and opening it up. I went ahead and got in the passenger’s seat. There was nothing about this conversation I was intent to keep secret from her.

“She’s just like you. Petulant, ungrateful, and arrogant. Won’t listen when other people are trying to help her,” she continued.

“What help?” I asked, fed up with yet another rant about my cousin. “No one helped her. They just wanted to pay her off so they could control her.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that, do you?” Mom sneered.

“You mean the trust fund?”

“And the credit cards. And the phone. How does it feel to be completely in the dark and destitute? That’s what your life will be if you don’t learn to behave and come home.”

“So, I come home and suddenly I get to have access to your bank account again?” I asked incredulously.

“Come home and marry Adam,” she said. “That’s the offer. You come home and marry Adam, and we will forgive you for this awful experience.”

“Hell no,” I said.

“Excuse me?” she shouted, familiar indignant anger in her voice. It was the same immediate zero-to-ten anger that I heard every time I did anything that she saw as being disobedient. Not immediately obeying her commands, not going to social functions, eating the wrong kind of “fattening” salad dressing. Always zero to ten.

“Cut me off, Mom, I don’t care. I don’t want your money.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “What would you do? Go hooking? Is that what you are doing? Sleeping with men for money?”

“Is that the only thing you can think I would do for money? Is that my only worth to you?” I asked angrily. Hannah’s head fell back into the headrest of her seat, and she shook it back and forth in disbelief.

“Don’t you put words into my mouth!” she yelled. Suddenly, I knew what I had to do. I took a deep breath.

“I’m not going to marry Adam. I’m seeing someone else, and I’m in love with him.”

“What?”

“What?” Hannah said, equally as loud in my other ear.

“He’s the one, Mother. The one I want. I will never marry Adam or anyone like him,” I said.

Hannah’s jaw was nearly to her chest, and she was turned in her seat toward me. I tried to ignore her, but even as angry and worked up as I was, it was funny. I had to close my eyes and look away so I didn’t start laughing.

“You are being childish,” my mom said. “You fell in love with the first man you met? Please. You will be divorced in a year, and then where will you be? Broke and homeless in Oregon of all places. How dare you do this to your father and me after all we have done for you? We even put you in that college and let you study journalism. Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was? We put up with so much from you, and you repay us by acting like this?”

“I have to go,” I said, my voice even. I had to keep my emotions in control because the humor of Hannah’s reaction had disappeared in the wake of that rant. “I have to go to work and see my fiancé,” I said, acid in my tone. “Don’t bother calling me again unless it’s to apologize.”

I pulled the phone away from my ear and pressed the End Call button. It was at that point that I wished for the old cell phones like my parents had when I was a kid. The ones that actually flipped closed. It would have been so much more satisfying.

I sat the phone down in my lap and stared straight ahead. When Hannah didn’t move from where she was for a moment, I looked at her quickly and then moved my eyes back out the window. Sighing, I turned slowly back again.

“Are we going to work, or are you going to just sit and stare at me all day?”

“You have got to be kidding me,” she said.

“What?”

“What? You’re in love with someone? And you were going to see them at work? Considering this is your day off and there’s no other guy but…”

There was a pause as I stared at her without emotion. Very slowly her eyes opened even wider. Wide enough I thought they would fall out of her head.

“No,” she said, shaking her head and laughing. “No freaking way. No freaking way!”

“Yes freaking way.” That was that. I’d already lied to Mom, might as well go all the way.