AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Eloise curled her bare toes against her kitchen rug as she turned her bacon. “Of course not,” she said. “Though maybe it doesn’t have to be one or the other.”
“You’re better off,” Deborah said firmly. “I never made up the difference in my career after you were born.”
Eloise pressed her fingers to her temples, rubbing circles in an attempt to ward off the gathering headache. “I know how much you sacrificed for me,” she said. Another platitude. When had Deborah ever allowed her to forget? “I need to get ready to go into the office this afternoon,” she lied.
“Make sure you’re careful. You know Ikeep track of the news in that part of the country—though why you felt the need to move there is quite beyond my understanding—and that little town of yours is overrun with crime. Did you know that just last night someone got shot robbing?—”
“No, mother, I hadn't heard about a robbery.”
“You should watch the news, Eloise. They didn’t even catch the people responsible, so they could still be out there.”
“I doubt they’d have any reason to bother me if they are.” Eloise was only half listening, her frustration mounting with each minute. “I really need to start getting ready.”
“Well, I won’t keep you then. I’ll tell your father you said hello.”
“Thank you,” Eloise said. “Goodbye, Mother.”
There was a click followed by still silence, and she looked down to see that Deborah had already ended the call. “I love you, too,” she said under her breath, a lifetime of bitterness a dull ache in her chest.
“She sounds like a real bitch.”
“Ethan.” Eloise fumbled the spatula, her gaze flying to meet his as he leaned against the door jamb. She hadn’t heard him get up and her cheeks flooded with embarrassed heat as she considered how much he might have overheard. “She’s my mother.”
“Yeah, I gathered that much,” he acknowledged. “Still a bitch, though. Reminds me of my grandpa.”
Her fingers stilled, the bacon crisping too much at the edges as she stared at him. “Mr. Callaghan? Why?”
“He had certain things he wanted from my mother, from me. She was an artist, a single mom after my dad split. My grandpa resented her refusing to settle for a more practical career. He had aspirations, you know? Wanted her to be a doctor or some shit. They didn’t speak after she got pregnant with me but when she died, I had nowhere else to go except to him. He was determined I’d turn out different than her, fulfill all the expectations she wouldn’t, and when I didn’t fall in line …”
“He was angry,” she said, filling in the gaps in what he was reluctant to say. Her afternoons with him, the tea and the polite conversation, didn’t seem like such sweet memories anymore. “He was always kind to me.”
“You’re exactly what he thought we should have been,” Ethan said easily, nodding his head to remind her about her cooking. “Steady, career oriented, ambitious.”
“I’m exactly what my mother thinks I should be, too.” She stacked bacon, eggs, and pancakes on a plate and handed it to him. “I don’t know how to be anything else.”
“Would you want to be?”
She turned off the stove and slid the spatula into a sink of hot, soapy water as she contemplated. “I don’t know,” she said truthfully. “I never really let myself imagine what it would be like if my life was different. There was a line laid out for me and I had to follow it.”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
She made a face, not bothering to hide her skepticism. “How do you do that? Just ignore everyone’s expectations?”
He sat down at the dining room table with a wince and poured syrup over everything on his plate. “I decide what I want from my life, who matters to me, and everyone else just has to deal with their disappointment.”
She sat down beside him, her legs tucked up in the chair beneath her. “Don’t you think that’s a little selfish?”
He paused with the fork partway to his mouth and shook his head. “More selfish than someone expecting me to live my life to their standards even if it makes me unhappy? No, I don’t think that I’m the selfish one in that scenario.”
“When you put it that way …” she said quietly. Her fork scraped against her plate as she picked at her eggs. “I just never thought of it in those terms.”
“I had my mother to give me perspective,” he reminded her. “I don’t think you had anyone to lift that burden for you when you were growing up.”
“No,” she agreed. “My grandparents were never around, and my father would never stand up to her. He spent all his time at work, and he probably would have agreed with her anyway.”
“You just need a little bit of adventure, a taste of something irresponsible to get you started.”
She smiled at him over her coffee cup. “Maybe that’s what this is? This whole thing with you might be my little rebellion.”
