Delaney burst into tears. “Oh, Summer. That was the most beautiful thing you’ve ever said to me,” she said.
Josie groaned. “I can’t take this hormonal storm right now. I just can’t take it.”
Delaney wailed. Summer giggled. Josie sighed. Then the three of them started laughing, and they didn’t stop for a long time.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Summer returned home more relaxed than she had felt in months. Years, even. To her surprise and delight, Veronica had orchestrated showers and baths for all the children except Olivia, and they were in pajamas, their hair wet and combed, their teeth brushed and books in hand, ready for bedtime reading.
“I told them that if they were all bathed by the time you got home, I’d buy them ice cream next time I came over,” Veronica said, her expression apologetic but her eyes sparkling. “I swear I won’t bribe them every time, but I figured you’d like having them clean. No offense, but that Nate’s got stinky feet. He needed a good shower.”
Luke and Sarah had a good chuckle at that, and Veronica winked at Nate. “Just kidding, buddy. They’re not so bad. Luke’s are way worse.”
After she left, Summer read to the kids and began the process of tucking them all into bed. When it was Sarah’s turn, she said, “Mom, can I ask you something? Where’s grandma? I mean, Willow. Are we going to see her anymore?”
A tiny crack formed in the sense of calm and peace Summer felt just moments before. And instead of answering, “I sincerely hope not,” like she wanted to, she said, “I’m not sure.”
Usually, she’d ask why or what Sarah was thinking about, but not tonight. She kissed Sarah on the forehead and stood up to leave, but Sarah stopped her. “Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“I miss her.”
On the inside, Summer cringed. She didn’t know how it was possible that Sarah missed Willow. How could you miss something that sucked the life force out of you?
“I’m sorry, honey.”
She left then, closed the bedroom door and leaned her back against it. As parents, she thought, we constantly question our decisions when it comes to our children. All we can do is hope we’ve made the right ones.
Summer shook her head, again thrown into her past.
***
Of course Sarah could miss Willow. Willow was a different person to her granddaughter than she was to Summer. And Sarah, having all her basic needs met, didn’t require as much from Willow as Summer had years ago. Her expectations were lower. Although, Summer thought, a child expecting her mother to give her an iota of love and attention didn’t seem beyond the realm of normalcy. Still, Sarah’s comment reminded Summer that growing up with Willow hadn’t been all bad.
One summer, their little Arizona town got so much monsoon rain the streets filled with water. Willow obtained a kayak—by which means Summer had no idea—and paddled Summer up and down the street in it. At first, Summer was embarrassed by her mother’s laughter, ringing out into the air like she was some sort of wild animal. But Willow’s joy at doing something so exciting rubbed off on Summer, and she found herself smiling, waving at their neighbors as if she were in a parade.
Exhibiting an unusual amount of forethought, Willow packed them a picnic dinner and they ate it in the kayak. Even now, Summer could taste the mustard on the cold cheese sandwich, and feel her teeth crunching through the carrots Willow packed as a side.
One winter, a huge snowstorm blew through, blanketing the entire town in fluffy white powder, closing schools and businesses for two full days. Willow dug some cardboard boxes out of a Dumpster, flattened them into sleds, and pulled Summer through the snow for hours. They came home that evening and ate chicken soup from a can, a rare treat. They sat at the kitchen table, smiling at each other over their steaming mugs.
While Summer had always craved routine and normalcy, Willow seemed to thrive on excitement. Her best mothering capabilities emerged when an adventure cropped up.
In the kayak that summer day, she pointed out the different types of trees, their leaves shaking in the wind. “That’s a willow tree, a weeping willow. That’s where I got my name. My parents lived in a house with a huge, beautiful willow out front. And that’s a dogwood. Isn’t it pretty? They love our summers. Well, not days like today, but you know what I mean.” She talked about architecture, pointing out the Victorian houses that lined the next street up and the Craftsman houses they floated past a few minutes later.
The sledding experience had brought up laws of physics, gravity, momentum.
During both days, Willow’s eyes were bright and clear, and she seemed to enjoy Summer’s presence rather than resent it.
Summer’s phone, which she’d left somewhere in the living room, jarred her out of her walk down memory lane. As she rushed to answer it before it woke someone up, she reminded herself that even though Willow had some good qualities, Sarah was better off without the whirlwind of destruction that was her grandmother.
***
Summer didn’t recognize the phone number on the Caller ID. It was a local number, a cell phone.
Had Derek been in an accident on his way to work? Was this the hospital calling? Or a Good Samaritan on the side of the road? He’d been so exhausted lately, it was plausible he’d fallen asleep at the wheel.
The now-familiar sensation of panic began to claw its way into her body. Her heart pounded. Her breathing whooshed in and out of her mouth. Her hands shook. So when she answered and heard Willow’s voice on the other end of the line, anger came to a rapid boil in her veins.
“What do you want?” she asked, powerless to stop the hatred from infusing her voice. “I told you not to bother me.”
“You sound tired,” Willow said.
“I’m pretty sure,” Summer said, “that this is almost the exact same way our first conversation started, that day you showed up at my door. I don’t take that as a compliment, in case you haven’t noticed during the time we’ve spent together. Were you just calling to point out how rundown I seem, or did you have something to say?”
A few seconds of silence ticked by.
“Can we meet in person?”
Summer groaned, loudly.
“Do we have to?”
Willow laughed. “You sound exactly like you did when you were in elementary school. Whenever I’d wake you up to go to school, you’d groan and ask if you had to. It was so cute.”
Summer didn’t answer. She had always been so exhausted as a kid, because Willow never made her go to bed at a decent time. She’d drag Summer out to the store at ten p.m. to get cigarettes, or to the convenience store for a packet of corn chips. Because it was her reality, Summer never questioned it. She never wondered why other kids went to bed at eight or nine, while she fell asleep on the couch at eleven and woke up at midnight to put herself to bed. What the hell was Willow thinking?
Summer still hadn’t responded, so Willow plowed ahead. “Anyway, can we meet? I can come over now.”
Summer imagined her nice, quiet evening as a perfect, shiny bubble. Then she imagined it bursting, its walls falling to the floor like the shell of an egg. Her imagination added smoke rising from the carnage.
“How about tomorrow, instead? I’m kind of busy.”
Busy being not busy, Winter said, is not the same as being busy.
“Fine,” Willow said. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Meet me at that coffee shop you like, that one with the bouncy horse. Say, nine o’clock? I have a surprise for you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Surprises from Willow were rarely uplifting in any way.
At some point during Summer’s childhood, Willow bought a wooden spoon with which she said she would paddle Summer’s backside if she misbehaved. She drew a smiley face on it and announced it as a surprise, pulling it out from behind her back with a flourish.
A few years later, she brought home a broom she’d pulled out of a restaurant Dumpster. “Surprise! I got you a new broom! Not sure if it’ll improve your housekee
ping skills.”
“I have a surprise for you,” she said one day when Summer arrived home from school. She drew out the “you” in a way that put Summer on edge. By then she was savvy to Willow’s idea of a good surprise. This time it was an iron she’d found at Goodwill.
Summer wondered what Willow had come up with this time. One of those automatic vacuums would be nice. But since she was an adult, Willow would probably buy her a lollipop. Something she would have appreciated thirty years ago.
***
Summer knew what Willow’s surprise was the instant she stepped through the doorway of Ground Up. Willow sat with her side to the door, across the table from two men. Her posture confident and charismatic, Willow tilted her head back and laughed at something one of the men said.
Summer knew immediately who the men were: her father and brother.
She couldn’t decide whether to be happy or angry.
She should be elated. She had always wanted to know her father, and now that she’d discovered she had a brother, it would be great to get to know him, too. Only … she wasn’t really in the right space to welcome these strangers into her life. Yes, she’d made progress over the past few weeks, but she felt like she was being held together by a piece of thin, brittle thread. One slight breeze and she could easily break apart, crumble into tiny pieces and float away on the breeze.
What if her father didn’t want to know her? What if he didn’t like her? What if she didn’t like him? And her brother. Had he enjoyed a normal life with two parents who loved him, one of them the father she never knew? Resentment and jealousy bubbled up in her body, and she felt the urge to scream.
The men—Summer’s father and brother—reacted to Willow’s dramatic gestures exactly as they should, smiling back, laughing, nodding.
Could Summer be part of this? Could she have this family? By the looks of it, she could. She could walk right in. They were primed and ready, sweetened up with Willow’s own personal elixir. Knowing Willow, she had told them all about Summer. She had cleverly disguised criticism as description, casually mentioning Summer’s insane number of children and weaving in her mental breakdown. But still, they waited here for her.
Did she even want this family?
Did she want the small talk, the pressure? Putting on family breakfasts, vacuuming the window blinds.
At this very moment, she decided, the answer was no. She had her own family, one she’d worked hard to build. One that didn’t expect her to clean crumbs out of the sliding glass door track. So before Willow or either of the men could see her, she turned around and walked away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“We need to stop holding emergency Happy Hour meetings until after I have this baby,” Delaney said. “It’s not as fun when I can’t have my Guinness.”
Rowdy’s was quiet tonight, a few patrons sprinkled amongst the hightop tables, chatting quietly—a big difference from the cheering, rambunctious crowd the girls usually saw.
“Sorry, Dee,” Summer said. “I felt like I was in crisis.”
“Wait, so, you just walked out?” Josie was incredulous.
Summer shrugged one shoulder. “What would you have done?”
“I don’t know,” Josie said. “I mean, they’re your family. That’s your father, your brother. Aren’t you curious?”
“Yeah, I am,” Summer said. “But is curiosity a reason to start a new relationship?”
“It was for me,” Delaney said. “Jake made me really curious.”
The girls laughed. “Somehow it’s not the same,” Josie said.
“Seriously, though, Summer,” Delaney said. “Why didn’t you want to meet them?”
Summer sighed. “I don’t know. I mean, if I’m being honest with myself—”
“And we know you advocate that,” Delaney said.
“Yes, I do,” Summer said, elbowing Josie to stop her chuckling. “If I’m being honest with myself, I was, or am, annoyed with Willow for setting up a meeting without asking me first. I mean, even now she makes it all about herself. All hail Willow for bringing this family together. All hail Willow for surprising Summer with such a wonderful gift. I mean, she didn’t even ask me if I wanted to meet them. She didn’t even give me the option.”
Both Josie and Delaney nodded.
“Have you talked to her?” Josie wanted to know.
“No,” Summer said. “She keeps calling, but I haven’t picked up.”
“I won’t say this a bunch of times,” Josie said, “but keep in mind what I said before. I lost my mom before I was ready. I know you don’t have the same relationship with Willow, but I don’t want you to regret not investing in this relationship when you had the chance. You don’t know when she might be gone.”
Benjamin, always aware of precisely the right moment to deliver another round, set glasses on the table and winked at the girls as he walked away.
“Maybe you could at least just answer her call,” Delaney said. “See what she has to say.”
Delaney had a point. Summer could talk to Willow. Maybe she had a perfectly good explanation for springing that meeting on Summer. And even if she didn’t, at least Summer could give her a piece of her mind. All she had to do was wait. If past behavior was any indication of future behavior, Willow would call again at least one more time this evening.
***
The call came just a few moments later as Summer drove home from the emergency Happy Hour meeting.
“You answered,” Willow said.
“Obviously.”
“Don’t take that tone with me.”
“Willow. I need to tell you that I’m sorry I didn’t come to the coffee meeting the other morning. But—”
“It was very rude of you,” Willow said. “I went to all that trouble to arrange a meeting. With your father, whom you haven’t seen in, well, in your entire life, really. And your brother. Your brother!”
It was exactly as Summer had expected. Willow truly believed she played the starring role in this production. She believed that by creating an opportunity for Summer to meet Dennis and his son, she was doing Summer a favor. She didn’t possess the capacity to understand that Summer may not have wanted to meet them. And now she felt hurt and offended by Summer’s lack of appreciation.
“Look, Willow,” Summer said. “I am appreciative. I’m grateful you did something you thought would be good for me. But you were thinking about it from your point of view. You didn’t even stop to think about what would be good for me.”
She was so caught up in her diatribe that she almost missed the red light. She slammed on the brakes. The van’s tires squealed. Willow was silent for so long, Summer thought she might have hung up. She looked at her phone and noticed the call timer was still ticking. So she waited.
“I just thought you’d like it, that’s all,” Willow said. Her voice sounded small and quiet. Unsure.
“I probably would like it,” Summer said. “When I was fully prepared for it. I’ve been exhausted lately. Stressed out. The last thing I need is the pressure of trying to impress my long-lost father and secret brother.”
“Impress them?” Willow said. “You’ve never tried to impress anyone. Besides, they’re your family. Why would you have to impress them?”
“You wouldn’t understand. You’re naturally charismatic. Adventure suits you. The unknown fuels you. But for me, the unknown, the new, the adventure, it all stresses me out. I know you don’t understand. I know you can’t empathize. But it’s the truth. We’re both adults now, but you still don’t know me. You still don’t realize that was way too much to spring on me right now. And for that, you should be sorry.”
Summer wondered if the people in the car next to her noticed the passion with which she spoke. The light turned green, and Summer accelerated with way too much force.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Basically, Summer thought, Willow had ruined her childhood. Summer had no frame of reference until she met Derek’s mom, Julie, so hadn’t been p
articularly unhappy. She spent a lot of time disappointed, of course, but she figured Willow spoke the truth when she said Summer was just oversensitive and more needy than the average child. Most likely, all parents were like Willow.
For the past fifteen years, though, Summer had fed her anger. At first, it was like a baby bird, requiring just bits of food deposited into its open mouth. It grew. It was now a huge, swooping owl, seeking any wrongdoings it could get its talons on. If something scurried past, some memory or infraction, that owl dove right in, hungry for more.
During the week since Willow’s failed surprise family reunion, Summer had realized there was a problem with anger, especially when it lurked in every crevice of her being. Anger is destructive. It permeates everything.
Summer found herself snapping at the kids, giving Derek the silent treatment and avoiding Delaney and Josie. She made crappy designs for her clients, and sent them scathing emails when they offered suggestions.
Back on FriendZoo, she commented, in shouty caps, on posts with improper grammar use (“WHY IS APOSTROPHE USE SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND?”) and criticized the way people spent their time (“IF YOU HAVE TIME TO TAKE THESE STUPID QUIZZES, YOUR STRONGEST QUALITY IS ACTUALLY TIME-WASTING, NOT KINDNESS!”).
She hated shouty caps.
Her phone constantly buzzed with texts from Delaney and Josie, telling her to get off the computer before everyone unfriended her.
Not that I care if they do, she responded.
She could practically see them rolling their eyes. This anger was a welcome change from the constant anxiety and near-panic she’d experienced before her breakdown and the two days she now referred to as her blissful hospital staycation.
The Motherhood Intervention: Book 3 in the Intervention Series Page 24