“I wish Jenna would have fun and live a little.” My mom pouts up at McCarthy. “But ever since she left the nonprofit world and went into corporate life and met Nathan, Jenna-bug has gotten so boring.” My mom makes an exaggerated face, twirling a curl around her finger.
“Mom…”
“I’m sorry, but you are, squash blossom. You don’t know how tolive. You’re losing your soul there in the city. You and Nathan should move out here to the commune. We can fix up the trailer for you.”
“Sounds like it’s exactly your style.”
I elbow McCarthy and scowl as my mom waves a hand at the dilapidated ’50s camper that was ancient in the ’90s and now probably plays host to families of raccoons.
“She and Nathan are having problems,” McCarthy says. “I don’t think they’re moving anywhere anytime soon.”
I kick him. “Nathan and I are fine.”
McCarthy mocks me. “Fine.”
“We’re wonderful!” I screech. “We were just talking yesterday about what school district we should buy a house in.”
“You can’t send your child to a school in the city!” Mom cries. “Children have to be with nature! My grandbabies need to turn out just as wonderful and creative as you.” Mom grabs the front of my shirt then shoves a handful of cold rocks in my bra. “Fertility charms.”
Beside me, McCarthy makes a derisive noise.
“Mom…”
“You said you were trying, and you’re a little old to be having your first. You need the goddess’s protection.” Willow clasps her hands together.
“Don’t defile your womb with that man’s sperm!” Great-Granny Mavis comes barreling out of the cottage, her cane clomping on the porch, several chickens wearing cloth diapers trailing her.
McCarthy rushes to help her before she trips over an abandoned art project.
She whacks him with her cane. “I can walk.”
She can’t. She really needs a walker or, better yet, a wheelchair.
Truman, who has raced up to his favorite perch on the Japanese maple, barks at the lumbering, overfed birds.
“I don’t know why every single man you bring home is worse than the last,” Granny Mavis complains.
My mom kisses my cheek. “Jenna is on her own path. And even if she is blessed with a little one, Nathan doesn’t have to be the one to raise the babe. After all, I asked the universe for father figures for Jenna after her sperm-giver took another path, and the universe provided.”
My fingers clench on my tote bag.
Have I tried to have conversations with my mom to make her understand how my chaotic childhood with the revolving door of boyfriends had impacted me negatively?
Yep.
But you can’t have a deep conversation with my mom. It leads only to tears and frustration.
I am accepting people as they are.Inhale. Exhale.
“What’s the point of having a baby if they’re just going to look like Nathan?” Granny Mavis argues, draping an armaround my shoulders. “You go to all that work—your feet bloat, your teeth fall out, and for what? You push a baby out of your snatch and it has Nathan’s nose?”
McCarthy looks like a model standing there in the forest.
Me? I feel sweat dripping down my back even though it’s cool out.
“Are you seriously considering letting that moron get you pregnant? You know he will dump you for a better model and you’re going to end up right back here raising a child in this.” McCarthy gestures grandly. “Repeating the mistakes of your childhood.”
That’s the problem with McCarthy. He digs into your soul, tears out your worst fears, then bludgeons you with them.
