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My Sarah is seventeen today. I planned a night out for her and her friends in Manhattan, and no expense has been spared. They’ll be having dinner at La Grenouille, a spot where they’re likely to spot a celebrity or two, and then off to the Garden to see Taylor in concert. My husband doesn’t balk at much, but I didn’t see any upside in sharing the obscene amount of money we parted with for those seats.
I considered putting a small cooler in the hired car with a few of those spiked seltzers, but my husband put the kibosh on that. Harmless fun, I argued—it’s not like I was suggesting a bottle of vodka—but he wasn’t having it. He’s right, I suppose. I’d about die if one of the other mothers found out and disapproved.
The party bus is arriving in one hour and—right on cue—she’s sulking. She doesn’t want this, that’s what she told me last week after I’d already sent out invitations, booked a Mercedes sprinter van, spent an ungodly sum on those tickets, and hounded my husband’s secretary to secure the dinner reservation. This night has takenmonthsto plan.
Those girls aren’t my friends, she tells me with tears streaming down her cheeks. They are—at least three out of the ten I invited are friends of hers. She needs to widen her circle, open herself up to opportunities. And I’m friends with the girls’ mothers, so it’s going to go well.
I’m sure of it.
The mothers are staying for drinks after the girls leave. It’s a kickoff to our daughters’ senior year, so there will be no shortage of topics for conversation. Two of the women are in my tennis league, and the rest belong to our club, so I know them to say hello in the very least. You see, I’m looking to widen my circle too, but that’s the difference between me and my daughter: I like the challenge.
Sarah does perk up when Penny arrives. To be honest, Penny is her one and only friend. Sarah could take or leave the others. And if I was being brutally honest, I’d admit that my daughter prefers the company of her horse over actual humans. She’d be pleased as punch if I called off the birthday party and dropped her at the stable to talk to her horse all damn day.
It’s like we’re from different planets, but it wasn’t always that way. I seesaw back and forth from asking myself what I can do to get us back to that good place, and resenting her right back for being so difficult, so…ungrateful.
I want to tell her the story of how she came to us, and one day I will, but how much will I share? Will I tell her how sad her birth mother appeared, shattered and alone, looking so very young in that hospital room? Will I ever tell Sarah that the girl needed to be coaxed to hold her, and not because she was unfeeling, but because she probably felt like she’d actually die from the pain and grief? Will I tell her that when I was expecting, it got to the point that I panicked whenever I had the urge to pee, so fearful of the bloodstains that broke my heart time after time after time? Will she ever understand the depths of our sadness, or how many times I was curled up just like that girl, with her father comforting me in the obstetrician’s office after yet another loss? I wasdesperatefor her—there is no other way to describe the feeling.
The two of us used to watch her sleep, struck with the wonder of it all. I was never tired and neither was Daniel. Sleepy-eyed, we’d shoot a quick smile between us as we woke for midnight feedings and diaper changes.
Will she ever fully realize the extent of my love for her? Elated, ecstatic, overflowing with joy—motherhood was every single thing I’d hoped for and more.
I breathe out once the driver pulls away. She played the part, smiled on cue and greeted everyone as they arrived, but I didn’t miss that one brief look back as she walked out the door. It was a look that said,I hate you.
No one else noticed.
I’m sure of it.
Chapter One
Blue eyes…It’s virtually impossible.
Parker snaps his fingers until I look up. He thinks he’s being funny, when in reality the move is borderline aggressive.
“Earth to Sarah,” he teases.
My fingernails dig into his skin for a split second before I push him away. “Get your hand out of my face.”
I’m usually easy going and oh so agreeable, so the force of my anger surprises him. “What’s the matter with you?” He looks behind him to where his two lap dogs are waiting before turning back to me. “Got your period or something?”
“Nope...Gotyourperiod?”
Still reeling from what I found out this morning, I’m surprised his lame insult even registers. It’s just another item on the ever-growing list of things that irritate me about Parker. He has a habit of quoting poets he doesn’t understand, plagiarizing term papers off the internet, using ridiculous words like ubiquitous with a straight face, and wearing a blazer to school for no reason other than to make himself look important.
Parker presents himself to the world as a distinguished, powerful man, with the lineage, connections and money to make his future a guaranteed success. And while he does have all of those things, he hasn’t lifted a finger to earn any of it. He’s not particularly bright, but it’s all but guaranteed he’ll be admitted to one of the finest private universities in the country based on his legacy connections alone. He has no worries and lacks ambition, but what does it matter? Like most of the people I’ve been surrounded by since birth, Parker benefits from the ruthless ambition of his ancestors.
Ancestors.
Shake it off.
Right, I just have to get through the next hour or so before I can hunker down and figure this shit out.
Smiling up at my dumbstruck boyfriend, I muster up a more conciliatory tone. “Are we going to lunch or what?”
He backs up a step and lets me pass. I walk a pace ahead of them, half-listening to their sickening bro-talk all the way to the cafeteria.
“What up, Jessie?”
Coming from my girl Penny it’s not a dig, but I can’t say the same for the others.
