The Ex Talk

The saleswoman returns with an armful of blush and mint and powder-blue dresses, and my mother thanks her.

“First show in two weeks,” my mother says from the other side of the dressing room door. “How are you feeling?”

“Oddly okay,” I say. “It hasn’t hit me yet that I’m actually going to be on the air.” I could say it a hundred times, and I probably won’t believe it until I’m in that studio I’ve grown so used to being on the other side of.

“Your dad would have been telling absolutely everyone,” my mother says, and then I hear her musical laugh. “People would have found him so obnoxious.”

“Didn’t they anyway?” I say, because it’s true.

When someone dies, you don’t only remember their good parts. You remember the difficult parts, too, like how if you asked a question he didn’t know the answer to, my dad simply ignored it instead of responding. Or how he was in a perennial fight with our neighbors over the trees that drooped into our yard, and he passive-aggressively retaliated by mowing our lawn early every morning for months. The deceased don’t immediately become flawless human beings. And it wouldn’t be right to turn him into one. We loved him, faults and all.

“Sometimes,” my mother says, emerging from the dressing room in a pink tulip-hemmed dress. “I’ve made my fair share of enemies in my career

, I’m sure. No, no, this one isn’t right.”

I claw a hand through my low ponytail, covering my mouth with it before letting it flop back onto my shoulder. “I thought, I don’t know, with Phil, and this wedding . . . that maybe you were finally doing it right this time.”

The door opens again, and my mother appears in a nude bra, a navy dress around her waist. She has freckles along her arms and across her stomach. When I was younger, her wrinkles might have frightened me, but now they make her look strong. “Shay. No. Not at all.” She hurries over to me, apparently not caring that she’s half-dressed. “I know this has to be weird for you.”

“A little,” I say, because a lot might worry her. I want to be the cool, open-minded daughter, but I’m not sure how. I’ve gotten so used to our tiny family.

But I also got used to Puget Sounds. My job is changing, and with the exception of whatever happened in the break room, I’ve been okay.

“Your dad and I had exactly the kind of wedding we wanted,” my mother continues, letting my hair out of its ponytail and running her fingers through it the way she used to do when I was a kid. “Our parents didn’t get along, and they had different ideas of what the wedding should be. Mine insisted on a traditional Jewish wedding, while Dan’s nonpracticing parents didn’t want it to be religious.” My paternal grandparents live in Arizona, but my mother’s parents passed away when I was little. “And now that I’m older, now that it’s just the two of us involved, we can do exactly what we want.”

“Maybe that’s the thing I’m getting hung up on,” I say, trying to sound more confident than I feel. “That it’s just the two of you, when I’ve always felt like it was just the two of us.”

That lingers in the space between us for a while, and when my mother’s face crumples, I immediately regret what I’ve said.

“Shit, that was really self-centered, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was just thinking about how I had no idea that proposal was coming, and Ameena asked if I’d known about it, and—”

But my mother shakes her head, rubbing at the hollow of her throat the way she does when she’s anxious. “No. You’re right. We’ve been a unit for the past ten years, haven’t we? I should have talked to you first. I’m sorry about that.” She glances down, and then back up at me, and for a moment I see not just my mother, but a woman who’s made a mistake and wants desperately to be forgiven. “But you’re happy about it, right? You like Phil?”

“Oh my god, Mom, yes. Yes. I love Phil.” I squeeze her hand. “I’m not mad. At all. I swear. I’m just . . . adjusting.”

“I think we all will be, for a while,” she says. “I want you to be part of this in any way you want, okay?”

“Okay, but if you try to get me to wear chartreuse, I am definitely standing up when the officiant asks if anyone objects.”

She nods solemnly. “And I’d deserve that.” Then she turns to the mirror, as though remembering she’s only half-dressed. She gets to her feet and straightens herself out, and I see she’s wearing not a dress but a sleek navy jumpsuit. It’s sleeveless with a wrap front and long, clean lines. It’s both age appropriate and nontraditional, commanding but understated.

Her face splits into a grin, and I realize for the first time we have the same exact smile.

Maybe I haven’t seen it enough on either of us.

“This is the one,” she says.

* * *

—

On Sunday afternoon, Mary Beth Barkley stands in my living room, locked in a staring contest with Steve.

“Thank you so much for doing this,” I say. “He’s been a bit of a nightmare. An adorable nightmare.”

Mary Beth waves this off. “Aren’t you the cutest little thing?” she said when she got here, and gave him a hunk of cheese from the pack around her waist. “What he needs are some boundaries and some discipline. I see it all the time with first-time dog owners, especially with dogs that haven’t been socialized. He needs to know that you’re the alpha.”

She begins by calling his name, rewarding him when he responds to it. Then we practice some basic commands and leash training.