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The pack of cigarettes vanished back into the two thousand dollar handbag. Raine tapped one perfectly manicured finger on the arm of the chair, fidgeted and then spoke. “Love is rarely convenient you know. It never behaves properly and if you really want love, sometimes you have to behave improperly as well. You have to take chances; you must be prepared to break your own heart, and somebody else’s.
“That is not an excuse and it certainly is not what I came here to say.”
“What did you come here to say?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Raine admitted, “Maybe nothing. Tell me about you.”
“There is not much to tell.”
“I blame your father for that.”
“Do not blame him,” a thin edge of anger ran under her voice. “He raised me well.”
“And in his image,” Raine gestured with the glass, the rich purple-red wine sloshed against inside the bowl.
“You make that sound like an indictment of his parenting.”
“It is not. I just thought he would have loosened up a little, maybe learn how to laugh at something other than the archaic jokes he is so fond of telling. Or maybe I was hoping you would be more like me.”
“I do not even know you,” Sandra pointed out.
“No but you have some of my DNA. I suppose nurture often does overtake nature though.”
Sandra bristled, “I do not particularly care to sit here, and listen to you insult me and my father in my own home.”
“I am merely stating the fact that you are right here where I left you. I had rather hoped you would wind up kicking your heels upon a stage somewhere or backpacking through Europe or anything besides living out your life here in this place.”
“Is that so terrible? I know you hated it here but I don’t. Neither does my father.”
“I hated it because it stifled me. I always felt like I was choking to death.” Raine said quietly. “It was always the same old faculty parties, the same constant clawing, and backstabbing for tenure and advancement and for what? The only reward at the end of that was the dubious honor of living out twenty years here on these same few square miles, watching the seasons change just like they did every year before and speaking to the same people every day of my life. It was utterly stultifying.”
A cold chill crept through Sandra. That was how Connor felt about the place. He had not said so in so many words but his feelings were the same.
“I find it comforting,” Sandra finally got out.
“Is that my fault? Did I make you afraid of change by leaving?”
It was a startling question, one Sandra had never considered, and did not want to consider right then. “No,” she said firmly but deep down she wondered if that were true.
Silence spun out between them. Sandra had no idea of what to say. There was too much time and water under the bridge. She was an adult and her mother had been absent for so many years she was a veritable ghost in her life. There was no reason for her to mourn her, and she had gone through all the anger and hatred and other emotions over her mother’s desertion years ago. She had long since accepted that her mother would never return for her, declaring that she was wrong and the Sandra was the only thing that truly mattered in her life.
It was hard to even imagine what had spurred those rather overblown daydreams, now that she was thirty one and far more pragmatic, and out of her father’s house.
“I just decided, on the spur of the moment, to come visit because we had a five hour layover and it was not so far to here from the airport.”
“You should get back. They are cancelling flights left and right. You may be able to get an earlier one and get out if not you will be trapped here for the night or longer. The weather channel says it will clear but you can never tell.”
Sandra knew it was unkind to say that but she did not care. The woman sitting in the chair across from her was just a woman who had dropped by in the middle of an afternoon, unannounced, and uninvited. She owed her nothing.
Raine got up, donned her coat and ridiculous hat, and walked toward the door, Sandra following behind her. The long black car idled at the curb, more plumes of gray smoke tainting the air.
Sandra watched her mother walk away and wondered, briefly, if she were happy but that curiosity was just that, an idle curiosity, nothing more.
**
Christmas Day dawned bright and clear. It had snowed again in the night but lightly. Sandra went to her tiny tree and stared down at the paltry presents arranged around it. Loneliness settled into her very bones and she shivered with a cold that had nothing to do with the temperature.
She made strong coffee laced liberally with sugar and cream and wandered back into the living room. The first present she opened came from her father, a practical and warm scarf and mitten set bundled on top of a sampler of teas. It was his usual gift and she smiled at it.
