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After that, Sage had started putting aside funds to pay for medical school, but she didn’t have near enough savings. Mark was so used to living a life of wealth and prosperity, that he didn’t seem to understand the concept of not being able to afford certain privileges.
“I don’t know if I can stomach talking about this right after your father’s funeral,” Sage remarked. Her words came across as more callous than she’d intended. It was expected that Harper wouldn’t respond well, but Sage hadn't been prepared for the explosion that followed her statement.
“You have no right to tell me what I can and can’t do!” Harper shouted.
Sage didn’t appreciate her daughter’s spiteful behavior. She’d been patient with Harper all day, despite her incessant rudeness. While it was understandable for Harper to be acting out as a result of her grief, her outburst was too much for Sage to handle. “Actually,” she said, standing up, “I do. Who do you think has to pay for all this extra schooling? I can’t afford for you to keep flaking out on your degree. If you had stuck with history, you would have graduated years ago.”
“Screw you!” Harper cried. There were tears in her eyes. “You’re one to judge me for being a mess-up. All you ever do is mess shit up! You can’t even manage to microwave pizza.” To prove her point, Harper picked up her slice of pizza and tapped it against her plate. It was rock hard. Sage had left it in the microwave for too long.
She took a deep breath to compose her temper before speaking to Harper. “Listen, I don’t think you’re a mess-up,” she stated calmly. “It just seems like you’ve lost the dedication you once had as a student. You used to stick out the courses you didn’t like. You would give subjects a chance before deciding whether you enjoyed them or not. Now it seems you just want to give up.”
Harper grew silent after listening to Sage’s words. Tears streamed down her face. She sobbed quietly before finally confessing her feelings. “Dad wanted me to be a doctor, but I honestly don’t think I can handle all the work and studying it takes to earn a medical degree. When I said I wanted to switch to science, I wasn’t thinking I would become a doctor.”
Sage nodded in understanding. “He put a lot of pressure on you, didn’t he?”
Harper expressed how she was never sure what her true motivations were because she always felt like she had to do whatever her dad wanted so as not to disappoint him. “If I got a ninety-six on a test he’d ask me why it wasn’t one hundred,” she said. “No matter how hard I worked I could never make him proud.”
Sage knew exactly how Harper felt. She’d been subjected to Mark’s unrealistic expectations time and time again. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you more,” she told Harper. “I buried myself in work to avoid dealing with all the damage Mark caused.” She moved to the cabinets in the kitchen to retrieve two wine glasses and a bottle of riesling she’d been casually drinking.
Harper looked surprised when the glass of wine appeared in front of her. In the past, Mark had never allowed her to drink in the house, despite being of age. Sage grinned at her. “What do you say we ditch this desiccated pizza and order Chinese?”
“Dad hated Chinese food,” Harper remarked with a snicker.
“I know,” Sage replied with a wink.
As the two women indulged in the wine and wantons, they recollected all of Mark’s imperfections.
“He always thought he was right,” Harper remarked. “But of course, he wasn’t.” She went on to tell Sage about the time she bought cranberry juice to drink because she felt as though she was developing a UTI. “Dad tried to tell me it wouldn’t help because of all the sugar it contained. He told me if I ate more vegetables and drank more water I wouldn’t have to worry about UTIs.”
Sage scoffed. “He was full of shit,” she said. “You should have seen the unorganized mess of documents he had filed away for his funeral plans. Half of the paperwork in the folder had nothing to do with a funeral. There was information about car insurance mixed in.”
Time flew by as the they shared their experiences living with Mark. Sage had never felt so comfortable and free while communicating with Harper. It was during their discussion that she realized how carefree she’d become. This was not only because her husband was gone, but because of Irving’s presence in her life. Irving may have looked perfect, but his flaws were both plentiful and charming.Who would have thought being imperfect was more attractive,she thought and by all accounts, Irving’s imperfections matched her own.
By the end of the night, Sage felt she’d finally managed to connect with her daughter. Perhaps the Chinese do know how to fix everything.
