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"I can't believe you came back," she sniffled into Melissa's crisp white shirt.
"You asked, Mother. How could I refuse?"
"You could have refused. Just like you refuse to take my phone calls."
"Only while I'm working, Mother."
"I didn't expect any of this. I didn't want to call you. I thought your father would be around forever." There was a break in her voice as if she was about to tear up. Melissa couldn't take a breakdown from her mother, especially not in public. The woman liked to make a scene.
"He was so young; he had another good twenty years in him," her mother said.
Melissa knew otherwise. Her father had been a consummate drunk, smoked like a chimney, and lived off fatty foods. There was no forever in his resume. He had died after consuming his favorite fried shrimp po-boy from the local deli. He made sure he ate every bite and then dropped dead of a heart attack next to the dinette set in the kitchen.
Melissa had been down for the funeral and then quickly returned to her small but chic apartment in New York to live her life. She had assumed her mother was doing fine. Her father had a considerable life insurance policy, and the house was paid off. There shouldn't be any reason to worry. But, according to her mother, she was barely getting by. The taxes were too high, and then there was the flood insurance after the last hurricane and maintenance cost. The house was old, one of the oldest in their small town, and something always needed to be repaired or replaced.
"I can't believe you came back," her mother repeated.
"It's going to be okay, Mom; I can do my job from anywhere; this will help both of us." Melissa patted her mother awkwardly on the arm, trying to get her to stop using her shirt as a handkerchief since the waterworks were now in full effect.
What she said to her mother was true. Melissa made her living as a writer for an online gossip blog. She could do her job from almost anywhere in the country since most of her tips came via email and text. She might lose some street cred when they found out she was reporting out of BFE Mississippi, but it wouldn't do that much damage. Or so she hoped. She could always fly to NYC for essential functions and networking events to keep the juices flowing. The irony of her day job versus her distaste for her own personal small-town drama didn't escape her. But, she brushed it away by justifying that these people chose to live in the public eye, whereas she liked to be far removed from scrutiny.
Melissa managed to disengage herself from her mother in time to see her bright pink suitcase begin to creep down the turnstile. She pulled the first one off the rotating rack and placed it near her carry-on.
"I have the car double-parked, so let's get moving." Melissa's mom went from an emotional wreck to crisp and business-like. She grabbed Melissa's backpack, the lightest of her luggage, and hurried off on her three-inch heels toward the service ramp without glancing backward at her prodigal daughter. The closest airport Melissa could fly into was New Orleans International, so they had a long drive back to their rural home. It was going to put Melissa's patience to the test.
2
Melissa
The drive home was boring. Her mother kept up an incessant chatter, filling her in on everything that had happened in the six years she'd been gone. Her twang had deepened in the years Melissa lived in New York, or maybe it was because she wasn't used to everyone speaking this way? Either way, it was annoying, and by the middle of the journey, Melissa was already ready to break her promise and head back to her tiny apartment.
The fact that her mother had a twang was peculiar since she wasn't a native Southerner. They had moved to Mississippi when Melissa was ten- from Chicago, of all places. It had been quite a change, and Melissa had fought it. Still, her father was intent on relocating his business, and the tax incentives were better in the South. Or so he said. Melissa never let the Mississippi drawl take hold of her, which was one of the reasons she was ridiculed in high school and never fit in. How dare she speak like a Yankee.
They thought their precious Southern drawls should be admired and revered. Melissa's Northern, heavy vowels were a disgrace to how proper ladies should speak. She was nothing more than a Yankee slut to her peers. Good Southern girls didn't behave like Melissa, didn't talk like Melissa, didn't dress like Melissa, and definitely didn't fuck like Melissa. Or so she had been told in the locker room, between classes, and on the few occasions her mother had managed to dress her up and drag her to the Club.
The moment she turned eighteen, she left and didn't look back. Back up North where she fit right in. Or tried to in any case. Then her dad died, and here she was, back for good. There wasn't any other solution for this situation.
Melissa and her mother pulled into the drive of the sizeable Acadian home her mother maintained. It was a sprawling restored plantation they had purchased when they moved down here for what her dad had called a steal. The house was huge, over six thousand square feet, and way too large for one person, but her mother refused to sell it. "Memories." She always responded with.
Her mother claimed that the taxes and utilities were killing her and that her father's savings and life insurance paid everything else.
"All I need is a little help to keep our family home," Melissa's mother had begged over the phone.
Melissa's salary was pretty good; if all she had to do was pay the taxes and a few electricity bills, she would be saving a lot of money living at home. Her New York apartment had put a burden on her finances. She barely had extra spending money after paying her bills to do the things she wanted. The house in Mississippi was big enough that she and her mother wouldn't be living on top of each other. While she lived there, she could talk her mother into getting a job to pay for the extras or selling the house at some point, and she could move back to New York. Her mother was only in her late fifties. There was plenty of life ahead of her. Melissa could get her on a dating app, or they could both move back to New York. Nothing was keeping her mother in this tiny little town.
As they neared the house, rounding the last large oak tree that lined the drive, Melissa noticed something was wrong.
"Mother, why are there a ton of cars parked out here?" Melissa asked, taking in all the fancy Fords and Buicks parked around the house.
"Well, darling, I had to throw a welcome home party; I couldn't let you slip in without anyone noticing. I invited all of your friends from high school, the neighbors, and the girls from the Club."
The Club. Melissa didn't know that her mother still maintained that expense. How much did that cost a year? She knew the fees were costly to be a member of the prestigious Southern Oaks Country Club. You weren't anyone unless you were a member. It wasn't a few hundred dollars, either. Melissa knew their annual fees were in the thousands. Much more than insurance and utilities. The truth was coming out before she even stepped foot into the house.
"Fuck me," Melissa said under her breath and let out a long sigh.
"Language!" her mother replied with a hiss.
"Sorry." Melissa opened the passenger vanity mirror and checked her make-up; she still looked fresh, even after a 4-hour flight and a 3-hour drive. Her shirt was another thing, though. She began unbuttoning the formerly starched white blouse, now smeared with lines of mascara and a smudge of red lipstick. She reached into her bag and pulled out a stretchy tee that showed off a little too much cleavage for this group, but she didn't care; it was all she had ready.
