I find an old rocking chair to my left and carefully sit, waiting for it to fall apart. When it doesn’t, I tuck my cold feet beneath me. The air smells different here than it does in Seattle, sweet magnolia and jasmine blending with the earthy high notes of the muddy Mississippi.
The sky is filled with streaks of purple and orange, and if I look really hard, I can see long strings of lights. They blink and disappear as a riverboat paddles up the Mississippi.
I know things got a little stressful during the drive to the mattress store, but I have to say that Mom and I had a relatively good day. She randomly asked about her fifth husband, Buzzy Doyle (I don’t know why he was called Buzzy when his real name was Lester), and brought up Tony only once. I didn’t leave the room or lose my patience or yell the f-word.
I push my braid from my shoulder and wrap the duvet tighter around me. I think I made progress today, and I’m going to continue to change even if it kills me. I can’t expect Mom to change. Change has never been a priority for her, and it’s less than likely to happen now.
Light from the front porch spreads out across the patchy grass and up the foot of a live oak. I’m not just going to try to get along with Mother. I am going to get along with her. I have to remember she can’t help her attitude and behavior. Not when she accuses me of stealing her shoes and all her money. Not when she screams about falling out of the sky or when she tells me I’m a lousy driver.
Not even when she mentions that rat bastard Tony. Obviously, her mind retains the good and forgets the bad. She remembers that she often called him when she needed something but forgets that he tried to destroy me. She remembers that she was included in our wedding plans but forgets that I called it off three days before I was supposed to walk down the aisle at St. James. She remembers that she loved him like a son but forgets that he’d cheated on me—her actual daughter—the entire two years we were together. She has no recollection of the day I dropped by his house to show him a copy of the wedding vows that Father Nick had given me and found him in bed with a barista from the Starbucks where we’d first met. Evidently, he’d never stopped schmoozing women over his triple-shot soy espresso macchiato.
As if the cheating itself wasn’t devastating enough, he monetized it for the sleazy talk show and tabloid circuits. Tony is a lawyer in private practice and knows how to give interviews that barely skirt slander laws. He tweeted and Facebooked just enough truth to make his side of the story seem believable. He Instagrammed photos of me in colorful lingerie that I’d sent for his eyes only. At the time, when the photos were being consumed exclusively by the man I loved, they’d seemed artsy and chic, but when posted publicly, they just looked tawdry. He removed them after my lawyer contacted him, but the damage was done. I was publicly humiliated, and people called me a hypocrite for not following my own rules. Specifically, the rules from my 2016 book, Inner Sassy, Outer Classy, in which I dedicated several chapters to the dos and don’ts of selfies, sexy pics, and nude photos.
Fern issued several statements on my behalf, but there wasn’t a lot I could do to stop his media assault—especially not after he wrote an article for a women’s magazine titled “The Truth about Lulu the Love Guru,” in which he blatantly lied about every aspect of my personal and professional life.
He was sent a cease-and-desist letter by my attorney, but he ignored it and shot off his mouth to TMZ. Finally, I had enough to prove defamation.
From the time I called off the wedding to the day Tony settled out of court, my life was a daily hell. Thirteen months of trying to salvage my reputation and keep Lulu and myself from taking a dive off the deep end.
I don’t know how I could have known Tony but not seen him for who he really is: a narcissist who hates to lose at anything. What might make him a good attorney makes him a horrible person.
It took me six months after the nightmare was finally over to relax, and another year to forget him completely. Now Mother reopens the wounds each time she mentions his name. Taking Mom to the condo triggered her memories of him. I hope living at Sutton Hall will encourage her to forget Tony so I don’t explode and swear like a teenage boy again.
Still clutching the duvet about myself, I return to the bedroom, praying for a few hours of calm.
Mom’s the queen of chaos, the high priestess of shenanigans, the executive chef of fruitcake—calm is not on her menu. Finding calm in the center of chaos is up to me, so I download a meditation app Lindsey suggested. It’s called Out of Your Mind: Meditation for Beginners.
The house is nice and quiet. No yelling or crying, and Mom has stopped snoring like a hibernating bear. I strike a meditative pose in the middle of the lumpy bed and take in a deep breath.
The session starts with soothing music until a man begins to speak in a sedated tone. “Find a comfortable position.”
That’s easy for him to say because he’s not on his family’s “practice mattress.”
“No cell phones or outside noise.”
But without my cell phone, how would I listen to the app?
“Let your eyes close and observe your breath. Observe if your breath flows in your belly.”
Doesn’t he mean lungs? Okay. Okay, I’ll stop overthinking and observe my breath in my belly.
“Imagine filling your belly like a balloon—”
Balloon belly? I take Midol for balloon belly.
“As you exhale, allow your breath to leave your belly in a gentle way. Observe how that feels.”
Oh, I didn’t listen and already exhaled.
“Go with it. Allow it to be a pleasure. Let it quiet your body. Let it quiet your mind and let go of the counting.”
I was supposed to be counting?
“As we begin our journey, imagine yourself in a white room. The walls are white. The floors are white. The ceiling is white. You are surrounded by white light. You are wearing white flowing clothing. Breathe into your belly and imagine you are a part of this white place.”
This guy sounds extremely beta.
“Allow the white surroundings to fill your center.”