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“Not until next year. And I’ve already asked YouTube when my boobs are going to grow, and when boys are going to start thinking I’m cute. When kids in my new school ask me about my mom, I’m going to say her name is YouTube.”
“Sammy …”
“Dad …”
This is not a hill I want to die on, so I tell her, “I can ask around about periods and let you know what I find out.”
As I pull up in front of Edwardo’s, she declares, “Don’t you dare! All I need is for people in Elk Lake to think my dad is the weirdest person on the planet. I’ve got enough strikes against me as it is.”
On that note, we get out of the car and run smack into one of those strikes. Her name is Kelsey Lynn and she’s standing in front of Edwardo’s with her mother, Shelby. Kelsey visibly jumps when she sees us, which causes her mom to step in front of her likewe’rethe dangerous ones. Clearly, she doesn’t remember the day Kelsey brought a dozen eggs to school to throw at my daughter. Or the fake TikTok account she set up in Sammy’s name, for that matter. As Sammy doesn’t have social media yet, a world of damage had been done before we even found out what was going on.
“James. Samantha.” Shelby is a clueless witch who does not believe in disciplining her child for bad behavior. I don’t want anything to do with her, but I need Sammy to know that we don’t cower to bullies.
“Shelby.”
“I hear you’re moving away,” she says with the fakest concern I’ve ever heard.
“We’re moving to a town where people know how to raise decent human beings,” I tell her.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
If my eyes were lasers, she’d be dead. “I know you’re not always that fast on the draw, Shelby, but I’m pretty sure you can figure it out.” Then I turn to Sammy and say, “You know what, Sam? I hear Edwardo’s is serving all kinds of questionable people these days. What do you say we go somewhere else?” Without waiting for her answer, I steer her back toward our car. She doesn’t start crying until we pull away.
Junior high school girls have got to be the most dangerous beasts on the planet. I pray with my whole heart that isn’t the case in Elk Lake.
CHAPTERTHREE
MELISSA
After lunch, I do my best not to interact with my mother. When I’m forced to say something, I keep it to single syllables. As the last bridal party is getting ready to leave, she very righteously tells me, “You can avoid me all you want, but I only have your best interests at heart.”
“I’m thirty-two years old, Mom. I can take care of myself.”
“I lost my mother when I was only twenty, Missy. My life would have been so much better had she lived.”
While I’m sad for my mom about the lack of mothering in her adult years, that does not give her the right to tell me how to live my life. The two are as unrelated as sayingmy mom died, so you have to eat green beans every day. Ridiculous.
Changing the subject, I ask, “Do you mind locking up tonight?”
I nearly have one foot across the threshold when she answers, “Why? Do you have a date?” She sounds so hopeful.
“Yep. I’m going to meet my future husband. We’re choosing our flowers and picking out wedding colors tonight.”
I wish I could get to my phone in time to take a picture of her face. My mother’s nearly wrinkle-free forehead ripples up like a Basset Hound’s as her eyes bulge out and her mouth hangs open. “How long have you been dating? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m not getting married, Mom. I’m just messing with you.”Why is this something I even need to explain to her?
Her facial features resume their normal location, except for her newly furrowed brow. “That’s mean. You know how much I want you to get married.”
“Why does it matter to you so much?” I demand heatedly. “I’m starting to think you care more about your future son-in-law than you care about me, and you don’t even know him yet!”Put that in your pipe, Margie.
“It matters because I love you. I know how hard life can be and I want you to have someone to lean on.” She sounds so sincere I nearly give up being mad at her.
The thing is, while I barely remember my parents being married, I still retain the fog of angst that permeated our lives during that time. It was like we were all walking on eggshells, hoping to keep our world from tumbling down around us.
Then came eight years of living between two houses, which was plain horrible. I don’t care how much kids may claim to like it, I know they never like leaving something at one parent’s house and having the other refuse to take them to get it. Not to mention the lack of structure and common rules that eats away at their very foundation. “But Dad lets me have chocolate in the morning!” or “Mom says I can shave my legs!” Is it any wonder I played the two of them off each other like a poker whiz on the Vegas Strip?
Instead of reminding her of all these painful things, I say, “Good night, Mom. I’ll see you in the morning.”
