Mom dove back into the subject of Marianne’s wedding and how I needed to be sure to reserve that entire week the following March because I, of course, would be one of the bridesmaids.
Mom circled back around to when I was coming home. She pressed me for a precise date. “I’d like you here before August third. That’s when Harris is leaving. He and his family are going on a cruise.”
A sour taste tickled the back of my throat. “Mom, what does Harris have to do with when I come home?”
“Georgia, I hear things are rocky between him and the other girl . . .”
“You mean the one he left me for? The one he cheated on me with?”
Mom ignored that and continued, “It’s just like I told you. It would never last.”
I sighed, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “Mom, I’m not getting back together with Harris. He left me for someone else, remember? I don’t want to be with him anymore.”
“We learn from our mistakes, Georgia, and we’re stronger for it in the end. Better.”
“Yes. I couldn’t agree with you more. I’ve learned from mine.”
“Oh, Harris was a mistake then? Four years of your life?”
“Yes . . . maybe. Look. He’s part of my past, Mom. That’s where I want to keep him.”
“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Georgie. First you wanted to stay up there for the summer, rejecting Mr. Berenger’s kind offer to intern at the bank. Embarrassing me, I might add. Now you’re not even interested in patching things up with Harris. I don’t know who you are anymore.”
The disappointment was there, ripe in her voice, and I felt suddenly suffocated. Like I couldn’t breathe under the pressure of it. That I could break apart from it at any moment.
“Mom, I have to lead my own life and do what’s right for me. Just because I don’t make the choices you want doesn’t mean my choices are wrong.” Did I honest to God just say that?
“Georgia,” Mom’s voice sharpened with authority—it was her principal voice. “Let me remind you that these choices you make are at my expense. Your father and I are paying your way. You are not as free as you think you are. We had an understanding when we let you go so far from home—that you would be there with Harris had a lot to do with our agreeing for you to go to Dartford.”
I sputtered and tried to remind her that he dumped me, but she barreled ahead.
“You were supposed to come home in the summers. And after graduation. You would get a sensible, useful degree and settle down here after graduation.”
There was an edge of desperation to her voice as she flung out these reminders. Before I could stop myself I heard myself snap, “Deviating from your plan doesn’t mean I’m like him, you know. It doesn’t mean I’m less of a person. I’ll still be your daughter. You can still love me.”
Silence met my outburst and for a moment I wondered if we had been disconnected. I almost hoped we had. That she had not heard me bring up that most taboo of subjects—my father.
I tried to imagine her face. Was she sitting at the kitchen table or in her bedroom with shades of pastels all around her?
“Georgia,” Mom began in carefully modulated tones and I released a breath, thinking this was it. We were finally going to have that talk—address the elephant in the room that happened to be my father and her need to create me in an image that was the antithesis of him.
“You will be here before August third. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Do you understand?”