She gazes off. “I don’t know how she did it, Clay,” she tells me. “For years, I’ve been trying to crack your grandmother’s secret.”
I listen.
“I mean, I would wake up the day after Thanksgiving when I was little,” she continues, “and the house would be completely decorated for Christmas already. I would go to sleep on New Year’s Day and wake up with it all gone again.” She smiles to herself. “It was like magic, how she got things done, as if she had a wand and never needed to sleep.”
Does my mom know that’s how I see her, too? Somehow, she handles everything.
“Perfect wife, perfect mother,” she murmurs. “Perfect house, on time for every event, always looked impeccable, and that woman can schmooze a room full of Norwegian investors without speaking a single word of Norwegian, or a room full of good ol’ boys who think America’s decline started with a woman’s right to vote.” She pauses. “She could do all that, Clay. I can’t do any of that.” She turns her head toward me. “I mean, how could she do all that? She would never have let me see her like this. Like you’re seeing me now. What was her secret?”
I feel my lips press together for a split second before they open. “Mimi was having an affair with the old sheriff.”
Her eyes narrow on me, and she cocks her head ever so slightly as her chest caves. “What?”
I nod. “For thirty-four years,” I say. “They used to meet out at Two Locks.”
Her mouth falls open a little, and I can see the wheels turning in her head as her eyes go from confusion and disbelief to realization.
“That’s how she did it, Mom.” I keep my tone gentle. “That’s how she put up with Grandpa and a life she didn’t love.”
She sits there, and I watch the news play out behind her eyes as the dots connect. “How do you know this?”
“She has his letters hidden in the mantel in her room.”
Looking back now, that’s what Mimi was telling me at Fondue with Father. How people like us, born with the duty to perpetuate this ‘empire’, have a responsibility to not follow our hearts. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have what we want. We just need to keep it a secret.
She knew that, because that was her life. She considers herself noble for denying herself a man she really loved, because let’s be honest: a thirty-four-year affair was love.
She raised her daughter to commit to unhappiness, and they raised me to keep my chin up and my mouth closed, as well.
“Perfect doesn’t exist,” I can only manage a whisper. “It never did.”
My grandmother may or may not have had choices, but my mom does.
And so do I.
In twenty years, I could be sitting here with my daughter, realizing I’d lived a lie for a life that made me miserable, and given up the one person who fed my every breath. I’ll realize how I’d ruined my life with such a massive mistake.
I stare at my mom, tears filling my eyes. “Mom?”
It takes her a moment, still lost in thought, but she looks over at me.
“I have to talk to you,” I tell her. “I don’t want to trouble you right now, but I need to say something. I need to say it now.”
It’s not the right time, but there will never be one. I clasp my hands together, looking down as I try to find the words.
“What is it?” she asks when I don’t say anything.
I open my mouth but close it again, not sure how to word it. I search my brain for the gentlest words—the easiest way—to explain it, but all I see is her losing her mind again and ready to hide in this closet the rest of the week, because she’ll feel like she failed. But I need to talk to someone. I need to say it out loud, and this is so hard, because I need my mom, even if she’s just going to make this about her. I’ll be able to see the disappointment all over her face.
Tears stream down my face. “Clay, my God,” she breathes out, her tone alert. “What is it?”
I open my mouth. Just say it. Just say it and then it’ll be out and over.
I lick my lips, staring at my legs. “I’m in love with Olivia Jaeger,” I say, just above a whisper.
I feel the walls crash in, and I close my eyes, waiting for it. Waiting for the meltdown.
She doesn’t say anything, and I don’t look up. I know she heard me.
“I’m in love with her a lot,” I finish.
More silence.
I wait.
And then, she falls back against the dresser again, exhaling a huge breath. “Oh, thank God,” she gasps, breathing hard. “Oh my God, I thought you were pregnant. Jesus, Clay. You scared me.”