Bitter Rose

by Melody Carlson

  Her hair, which is longer than mine, is starting to thin and go gray, and it’s lost most of its curl. The way it hangs limply over her shoulders makes her look much older than she is—almost haglike. Without any makeup, her face looks sallow and flat, and dark shadows show beneath her eyes. She really looks pretty pathetic, and the frumpy bathrobe and extra pounds don’t help a bit.

  “Are you okay?” I ask her.

  She looks up, slightly surprised, and then just shrugs.

  I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry for the stuff I said yesterday.”

  Her eyes seem to study me, as if she’s trying to see whether I’m sincere. Finally, she says, “I’m sorry too.”

  “I just came to get some things for school.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Huh?”

  “Meaning are you getting things because you’re not coming back?”

  I frown. “I still don’t get what you’re asking.”

  “Well, last night you said you were going to live with your father. But then Louisa calls and tells me you’re spending the night over there. I assume it was because your father wasn’t home.”

  I don’t miss that she’s calling him my father now instead of my dad. And I’m guessing there is some significance in this slight change of terminology.

  “So I’m wondering, Magdela, are you planning on moving out?”

  “Do you want me to move out?”

  She lets out a frustrated sigh. “Of course not, but I won’t force you to stay here either. You’re right. You’re almost an adult. You should have a say in where you live.”

  I nod, somewhat satisfied. “Thanks.”

  “So where’s it going to be?”

  I look down at the floor.

  “Magdela?”

  “Here,” I mumble.

  “Really?” She seems surprised. “Are you sure?”

  I consider Tia Louisa’s beautiful house, not that she’s invited me to stay. Awesome as it is, I think I’d be more comfortable in my own home. And despite everything, this still feels like it’s my home—at least I hope it is. “Yeah,” I tell her, “I’m sure.”

  She frowns now. “But what about your father? You were so dead set on moving in with him. What changed all that?”

  I shrug and glance toward the window over the sink.

  “Was he home last night?”

  I don’t want to answer her.

  “Magdela?”

  I consider lying but then wonder what good it will do. Like Tia Louisa said, this all has to come out into the open. Perhaps sooner is better. “Yes,” I tell her, “he was home.”

  “But you didn’t stay?” I feel her eyes on me now, studying me as if she actually does know something—or suspects it.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  I look back at her now and realize that I should just say it, get it out. “He had a guest, Mom.”

  I see a flicker of hurt in her eyes, as if she really does know. “What kind of guest, Magdela?” Her words are calm and even now, but it’s a forced kind of calm.

  “A woman guest.”

  “Stephanie?” she asks without even blinking.

  “I don’t know.” I stare at my mom, trying to determine if she might actually know this woman—the woman I saw last night. “I didn’t stick around long enough to catch her name.”

  “Was she blonde?”

  I nod.

  “Tall and thin?”

  I nod again.

  “Pretty?”

  “Yes. Do you know her?”

  She kind of laughs. “Well, no, not actually. I know of her. She works with your dad. A coworker. A friend. You know.”

  “Is he having an affair with her?”

  She kind of smiles now, but it’s not a happy smile. “You’ll have to ask him that, mi hija.” Then she looks down and turns a page of the paper. “He’s the only one who can answer that question.”

  “Right.” I glance at the clock now. “I gotta go,” I say quickly, “or I’ll be late.”

  I grab my stuff and hurry to make it to school on time. But even though I am physically there, going to and from my classes, I might as well be sitting on the moon, because my brain is simply not working. All I can think is, How can this be? How can my dad be having an affair? This is so wrong.

  I check my phone for messages at noon and am not surprised to see that my dad has called. Of course, he wants to straighten out this “unfortunate incident.” “Can we meet for coffee?” he says. “I’ll even get off work early. Four thirty at Java Hut? Let me know, okay?”

  I don’t call him back. I don’t want to talk to him.

  It feels freaky to switch gears like this. For a few weeks I have hated my mom, and now I hate my dad. What does this sort of thing do to your mind? Will it have a lasting effect? I tell myself that I should go directly home from school and catch up on my homework because I do have a sense that my grades are slipping. I imagine myself talking about it to Mr. Hurley, the academic counselor, trying to explain that it’s really my parents’ fault that I’ve pulled all Fs. “First I thought it was my mom,” I would explain as he stroked his little gray moustache and frowned at me. “But then it was really my dad. And it’s messing with my mind. It’s starting to make my head hurt.” Would he even get that? Would anyone?

  “Are you okay?” Claire asks me on the way home from school on Wednesday. “You’ve been really quiet lately.”

  I’ve already filled her in on all the details of my parents. And while she was sympathetic, she was not surprised. “That’s pretty much what I suspected,” she told me after I poured out my sorry tale.

  “Seriously?” I said. “You knew this and you didn’t even tell me?”

  “Well, it’s the most obvious scenario. Man has an affair; woman gets left behind to pick up the pieces. You know. But it’s not like I could tell you, especially when you were so convinced your dad was innocent. And to be honest, I guess I hoped he was. I mean, I’ve always liked your dad.”

  “Do you now?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess, for your sake, I’m mad at him. But he’s probably still a nice guy.”

  “A nice guy?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. But eventually you’ll have to forgive him, you know?”

  “Forgive him?”

  “I know it’s hard to imagine. It took me years to forgive my dad.”

  “And you actually did?”

  “Yeah. We’re supposed to forgive, Maggie. Don’t you ever listen to the sermons and stuff? God forgave us; we forgive others. You’ve probably been hearing that since you were in diapers.”

  I nod. “Yeah, yeah, I know.” But I’m thinking it’s going to take a serious miracle—I mean, God will have to totally intervene—for me to be able to forgive Dad. Crud, I can’t even talk to him right now.

  “Do you work today?” she asks as she pulls up in front of my house.

  “Yeah, but not tomorrow.”

  “Right. Well, have a good Thanksgiving,” she says. “Call me on Friday. Maybe we can do something.”

  “Thanks.”

  “At least you get to see Ned today,” she says brightly.

  I nod. “Yeah, if he’s there.”

  “I can’t wait to hear how that’s going.”

  I smile and wave, hoping that I look more cheerful than I feel. I know my gloominess is a drag for her. I have to try harder to at least look happy. True, at least I might see Ned tonight. That’s something.

  I’m pleased to see that Ned is at work. We visit pleasantly during lulls, of which there are many. It seems not too many people go out to eat the night before Thanksgiving.

  “I don’t know why I even open sometimes,” my aunt complains as she glances around the mostly deserted dining room and rubs her temples with her forefingers.

  “A migraine?” I ask.

  “Hopefully not.” She looks at her watch. “If it doesn’t pick up, we might as well start to close early. Maybe eight thirt
y. Do you want to inform the kitchen?”

  As it turns out, we do close early. And as I’m getting my coat, Ned asks me if I want to get a cup of coffee. “There’s a Starbucks just down the street.”

  “Sure,” I say. “That sounds good.”

  So we walk together, and I tell myself that this is almost like a date. Okay, maybe it’s just coworkers going out for coffee, but I can still enjoy it. The air is really crisp and cold, and Ned thinks it could actually snow.

  “This time of year?” I say skeptically.

  “It’s happened before.”

  “Not that I can remember.”

  “I remember snow on Thanksgiving one year,” he persists.

  “No way,” I challenge. “On Thanksgiving? I’ve lived here all my life, and I don’t remember that.”

  “Maybe you were too little,” he teases.

  “You’re not that much older than me,” I insist. “I’ll be eighteen in February.”

  “A grown woman?” But I hear the lightness in his voice, as if he still thinks I’m a little girl.

  We order our coffee and go sit down. Not unlike the restaurant, this place is dead too. “Where is everyone?” I say as I glance around at the empty tables.

  “Home, stuffing their turkeys?”

  I laugh. “You don’t stuff turkeys the night before, silly.”

  “Oh.”

  “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” I ask.

  “Sleeping in.”

  “I mean after that.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Not spending time with family? Eating too much turkey? Going into a tryptophan-induced coma in front of a football game?”

  He smiles. “No, as wonderful as that sounds, I am not.”

  “Really?” I frown now. “That seems kind of sad.”

  He nods. “Yeah, it does, doesn’t it? Do you feel sorry for me? That I’m all alone in the world? No family to go home to?”

  “Really? You really don’t have any family?” With all my extended family, not just on my mom’s side in this town but also where my dad comes from, a few hours from here, I find this impossible to even imagine.

  “My parents split up a few years ago,” he says. “They both remarried, and my dad moved to Arizona, and my mom and her new husband have been doing a lot of traveling. Right now, they’re in Cancun, I think it is, or maybe it’s Thailand. I’m not sure.”

  “Siblings?”

  “A sister in Boston.”

  “Aunts, uncles, grandparents?”

  “Here and there. But we’ve never been really close. My dad was military, and we moved around a lot. We never had time to do the family stuff.”

  I shake my head. “That is so sad.”

  “Maybe. But only around the holidays. And then I hear some of my friends complaining about how awful their holidays are and how everyone gets into these big fights, and I think, Hey, maybe I’m lucky. I’m free. I can come and go as I please.”

  “Maybe.” I consider this. “But I still think it’s sad.”

  “Well, I figure I can always marry into a big, happy family.” He winks at me. “Like yours, for instance. I already know that your aunt Louisa has all kinds of relatives. What’s your family like?”

  Okay, now I’m feeling seriously torn. On one hand, he’s just talked about marrying into a big, happy family (I know he’s probably just kidding), but now he wants to know about my family—like we’re so happy.

  I start by telling him about my sister and brother, and how we do have a lot of extended family, and how birthdays, holidays, weddings, whatever, always turn into a big celebration. “And the food is usually good.”

  He smiles and rubs his hands together. “You’re tempting me, Maggie. Are you already spoken for? I’ve heard that some Latino families still believe in arranged marriages. Maybe I should put in a word to Eduardo.”

  I laugh. “Well, wait until you hear the whole story. It gets worse.” So then I tell about my parents, but not with all the details. In fact, I probably make it sound more positive than it really is.

  “That’s a bummer,” he says.

  “I know.”

  “Parents don’t realize how this messes up our lives.”

  “I know.”

  “They think just because we’re all grown-up, or nearly grownup, that it doesn’t matter. But then you get stuck trying to figure out what to do for the holidays and weddings, like my sister when she got married. Who sits where? And do you invite them both and risk having a big scene?”

  “I haven’t even considered that.”

  “There’s all kinds of things, like when kids come. I guess that’s okay when they get tons of presents from like four sets of grandparents. But it seems like it would be confusing too.”

  I nod. “Yeah. Like what would you call them?”

  “Grandma One, Grandma Two, and so on.”

  We talk some more, and it occurs to me that my parents have set me up for all kinds of problems I haven’t even begun to think about.

  “Sorry,” he says finally.

  “For what?”

  “I didn’t mean to depress you with all my parental divorce talk.”

  “You’ve given me things to consider.”

  “Well, you’ll get through this, Maggie. We all survive.”

  Then we walk back to our cars, and Ned waits to make sure I’m safely in mine—such a gentleman—and we both drive away. But as I’m driving, it occurs to me that I should’ve invited Ned to have Thanksgiving with our family. I’m sure Tia Louisa wouldn’t mind. Maybe I can give her a call in the morning.

  twelve

  IT FEELS WEIRD WHEN IT’S JUST MOM AND ME DRIVING OVER TO TIA Louisa’s the next day, but I try to act normal, especially since Mom seems a little uptight, and I even carry on a conversation with her.

  “So this is a guy you work with?” she asks as she turns to go up the hill.

  “Yes. He doesn’t have any family close to here, and Tia Louisa said it was fine for him to come. He already knows her and Vito and Eduardo and I don’t know who else, so he’s kind of like family.”

  “Is he Hispanic?”

  I laugh. “No way. And his last name is Schlamowski.”

  “Good grief, what a name.”

  “Anyway, I think he was relieved to have a place to go. You know, he works to put himself through college. His parents are barely helping him, and his mom even married this really rich guy. But Ned doesn’t want to take money from him because it would make his real dad feel bad.”

  “He sounds like a thoughtful young man.” Then she turns and looks at me curiously. “You’re not interested in him, are you, Maggie?”

  “No,” I say quickly. “He’s just a good friend.”

  “Oh, good. How old is he anyway?”

  “Just twenty.”

  She nods without commenting. But I think I can see the wheels in her head turning. She’s probably thinking that her youngest daughter better not get involved with someone that old. I’m tempted to remind her that I’ll be eighteen before long, but then I figure, Why rock her boat? Especially today, when it probably feels like it’s already sinking.

  The dinner goes relatively smoothly. I think Ned feels pretty much at home. He really does know a fair number of my relatives. Even Brad and Andy have met him before. And the other cousins make him feel right at home. Everyone thinks he’s here because of the connection with Louisa and Eduardo and the restaurant, so I don’t feel any pressure to explain why he is here or that I was the one who actually invited him.

  After dinner, the older adults mingle in the great room upstairs. The men, naturally, gravitate to the football game, and the women go off to the sunroom. The rest of us go downstairs to play pool and video games, pausing now and then to check on the game, which is so boring that I’m pretty sure my uncles must all be snoring by now.

  Once again, Ned fits in just fine. And even though I’m still the youngest, it seems like they’re treating me more like one of the gang, like
maybe they think I finally grew up. Or maybe they’re just being sympathetic because by now everyone is well aware that my dad has left my mom.

  No one really discusses it, except in hushed whispers, especially whenever Mom or I are within earshot. But I know they are thinking about it, probably feeling sorry for us and curious as to what the “rest of the story” is. Maybe the women are up there grilling Mom right now. I try not to think about that as I concentrate on getting the two ball into the corner pocket.

  Ned leaves before anyone else, excusing himself to “go study” since it’s not long until finals and he’s taking some hard classes this term. But he thanks me for inviting him and says he’ll see me at work tomorrow. After that, the other cousins start making plans—some to go out partying, I’m sure—and the crowd begins to break up.

  Mom seems relieved to go. I’m sure she’s tired of answering questions. I’m curious as to how she answered them since she still hasn’t come right out and said that Dad is definitely having an affair. She keeps telling me to go ask him if I want to get to the bottom of it. But despite the messages he’s left asking to meet with me, I am still unwilling to talk. However, curiosity may eventually win out. I realize now that I’d feel bad to blame him for cheating on Mom all this time if he is, in fact, innocent—although it seems unlikely. Still, I’ve been wrong before. I was wrong—or I think I was—to be totally blaming Mom early on.

  I finally call my dad the next day, leaving him a message that I’ll meet him for coffee on Sunday, if that works for him. “After church,” I say as if giving him a hint, like some people still go to church. Okay, maybe I don’t listen so well in church, and maybe I’m not really living like much of a Christian, but my dad doesn’t have to know everything.

  The next couple of shifts at work are actually fun. The restaurant is busier than ever. “The after-shopping crowd,” my aunt explains. “Everyone’s in great spirits for the holidays. We’ll be busy like this right up until Christmas.” I can tell this makes her happy, almost like those old cartoons where you see the dollar signs in the characters’ eyes. But then, in her defense, I think it’s more than the money. I think she enjoys the energy, the feeling of good cheer, the music, the food, well, everything about the restaurant. And, more and more, I think I do too.