“What?” My hands brush at my mouth. “Have I got something on my face?”
“Huh? No,” she laughs. “Not at all, love.”
“Why are you looking at me funny?”
“I’m not, Ellie? You’re dreaming things up.”
I take a sip of my wine and decide that it’s much better than the cheap stuff I usually get, making a mental note to check out the label so I can buy some later. When I look back up, my mum is staring at me oddly again.
“Okay, that’s it. What’s with the look? Don’t tell me it’s nothing. You’ve made my favorite dinner, you bought a bottle of posh wine, and now you’re looking at me queerly. What’s going on?” I put my hands on the table and give her a petulant look.
My mum sighs and puts her glass down, but not before taking a giant gulp of wine first. “I wanted to talk after dinner, but you’re just too observant.”
I chuckle sarcastically, “That’s strange because I feel as if I’m the most unobservant person on Earth. Just today, Agnes at work told me that everyone knows I don’t want to marry James and…”
The hair on my arms stands at attention at my unintentional admission, and my mum’s eyebrows have shot up into her hairline. I’ve broken out into a light sweat even though it’s February and not that warm in here.
“Ummmm…” is all I can come up with to say.
“It’s about time,” my mum says in a manner that one would use to ask you to pass the potatoes. ‘Oh look, pass the potatoes, and it’s about time you broke off your sham engagement’.
“What?” Now it’s my turn to look shocked.
She clucks her tongue at me and waves me off with her hand. “I’ve known for ages that you don’t want to marry James. It’s about time you’ve admitted it to yourself. That boy’s not stupid either, he knows it as well. He just doesn’t want it to be over. Not on his end, anyway.”
I pick up my wine and quickly gulp down the entire drink. Then I get up, fetch the bottle from the fridge, refilling my drink to the top edge of the glass. Then I plunk the bottle down in the middle of the table.
“What do I do? It’s so complicated. I mean, I live with him, Mum. He saved my life, twice. I owe him so much. I love him, I’m just not in love with him,” I confess.
She’s the first person I’ve ever said this to out loud. I’ve never had anyone else to confide in, not since Kate and that was so long ago that I can’t even remember what having a close friend feels like. Honestly, now that I really think about it, I don’t have any friends, only James and my mum.
Mum reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “It’s not going to be easy, dear. It never is. But can you live with the mistake for the rest of your life?”
“I don’t know.” I run my finger around the top of the wine glass as I think. “I don’t know how to be alone. I always had you and dad, then James. What if I can’t do it by myself?”
“Listen here, Ellie!” My mum slaps her palm on the table top to accent her harsh tone, making my eyes snap up to meet her blazing blue ones. “Who do you think ran the house after your dad died and I was ill? Who gave up her scholarship to an American university and went to school and worked and took care of her mum at the young age of eighteen? Who overcame that brutal attack and finished her dream of becoming a nurse even though she had to take two years off to get herself together after what that bastard did?”
I suck in a sharp breath at her speech, then feel the burn of tears behind my eyes.
“You’re stronger than you think you are, El. I know it and now you know it. So stop feeling like you need James around to keep you from falling apart. It’s you who keeps us from falling apart. It’s always been that way, you just can’t see it.”
I wait a moment to see if her rant is over. When she doesn’t say anything else I say the only thing I can think of, “Thank you, Mum.”
She smiles and hands me a napkin to wipe up the few tears that have escaped. “Now,” she says, “let’s talk about why I really asked you to come here.” I look at her warily. I forgot we never got to her ulterior motive. “I’ve met someone and he’s asked me to move in with him. I said yes.”
Holy hell, that is so not what I thought she was going to say. She uses the same nonplussed tone that she did when she mentioned me not being in love with James.
“What?” I squeal. My engagement is falling apart and now my mum is shacking up? She never even told me she was dating anyone! It’s so bizarre and otherworldly that I start laughing. It must be contagious because Mum laughs with me and the two of us continue in hysterics until dinner gets cold.
Lucky for us it tastes just as good reheated because after a night like this, there was no way in hell I wasn’t having some of that pie.
33
Adam
“Sorry mate, I can’t make it.” Dax grunts and raises an accusatory eyebrow at me.
“Bros before hos, isn’t that what they say here?” Dax asks.