“Honey, if it seems like I’ve been trying to fix you your entire life, it’s because I know how hard it is to not quite fit in with this family. I know how hard this world of wealth and privilege can be to people who are different. I didn’t want that for you.”
“Momma, I’m never going to fit into this world. I’m just not. Your constant browbeating has never done anything except make me feel worse about it.”
Her mother blanched and turned away to dab delicately at her eyes, all the while making unmistakable sniffling noises. “I had no idea.”
Wendy had seen her mother bury emotions often enough to recognize this for the show it so obviously was.
“Oh, Momma.” Wendy rolled her eyes. “Of course you did. You just figured you were stronger than I was and that eventually you’d win. You never counted on me being just as strong willed as you are.”
After a few minutes of silence, she said softly, “I’m sorry, Mom.”
Her mother didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Apology accepted.”
“I really do wish you’d been here for the wedding. I guess I should have made sure you knew that.”
Her mom slapped the knife down onto the counter. “You guess?”
“Yes,” she said slowly, putting a little more force into the chopping. “I guess I should have.”
“I am your mother. Is it so wrong for me to wish you’d wanted me here enough to—”
“Oh, this is so typical,” she said. “Why should I have to beg you to come to my wedding? I’ve lived in California for over five years. When I first moved here, I invited y’all out to visit all the time. You never came. No one in the family has shown any interest in my life or my work until now. But now that baby Peyton is here, you’ve descended like a plague of locusts and—”
“My land,” her mother said, cutting her off, her hands going to her hips. “And you wonder why we didn’t want to come before now, when you talk about us like that.”
Wendy just shook her head. Once again, she’d managed to offend and horrify her mother. Somehow, her mother always ended up as the bridge between Wendy and the rest of the Morgans. The mediator pulled in both directions, satisfying no one.
“Look, I didn’t mean it like that. Obviously I don’t think you’re a locust. Or a plague.”
“Well, then, how did you mean it?”
“It’s just—” Bracing her hands on either side of the cutting board, she let her head drop while she collected her thoughts. She stared at the neat little carrot circles. They were nearly all uniform. Only a few slices stood out. The bits too bumpy or misshapen. The pieces that didn’t fit.
All her life, she’d felt like that. The imperfect bit that no one wanted and no one knew what to do with. Until she’d gone to work for FMJ. And there, finally, she’d fit in.
Her mother just shook her head, sweeping up the pile of diced celery and dumping it in the pot. “You’re always so eager to believe the worst of us.”
“That’s not true.”
“It most certainly is. All your life, you’ve been rebellious just for the sake of rebellion. Every choice you’ve made since the day you turned fifteen has been designed to irritate your father and grandmother. And now this.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Remember when you were fifteen and you and Bitsy bought those home-perm kits and gave yourselves home perms four days before picture day at the school?”
She did remember. Of course she did. Bitsy had ended up with nice, bouncy curls. But she’d been bald for months while her hair grew back out. Her father had been so mad his face had turned beet-red and her mother had run off to the bathroom for a dose of his blood-pressure medicine.
That had not been her finest moment.
“Or the time you wanted to go to Mexico with that boyfriend of yours. When we told you no, you went anyway.”
“You didn’t have to have the guy arrested,” she said weakly. She couldn’t muster any real indignation.
“And you should have told him you were only sixteen.”
Also, not her proudest moment.
“And don’t try to say we were being overprotective. No sane parent lets their sixteen-year-old daughter leave the country with a boy they barely know.”
“Look, Mom, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was such a difficult teenager. I’m sorry I never lived up to your expectations. But that has nothing to do with who I am now.”
“Doesn’t it?” Her mom swept up the carrots Wendy had been chopping and dumped them into the pot, lumpy, misshapen bits and all. She added a drizzle of oil in the pan and cranked up the heat. “You’ve rushed into this marriage with this man we’ve never even met—”