by Susan Fox
“We’ve all been hurt by men,” Mom said. Then, with a quick smile, “Except Merilee, who had the good sense to choose Matt and hang onto him.”
My brain was slow this morning, so it took a moment for my mother’s words to sink in. “You’ve been hurt by a guy? Not Dad?” I asked, horrified.
She smiled quickly, genuinely. “No, of course not.”
“Mom?” Kat said, and all of us stared at our mother.
“The first,” I breathed.
“What first?” Merilee sounded lost.
“Her first love,” I answered, seeing the truth on our mother’s face. “The one who ended up not being the real one.”
Tree said, sounding snappish, “Why didn’t I know about this?”
“None of you did,” Mom said briskly, “because it wasn’t relevant.”
“But Jenna knew,” Merilee said, a whine in her voice.
“Only by e-mail a couple of days ago,” Mom said, “and because it became relevant.”
“You have to tell us,” Kat urged her. “This is family history. We should know.”
“Does Dad know?” Tree asked.
“Of course.” When Mom rose and headed over to the coffeemaker, I realized for the first time that, below her softly tailored ivory blouse, she was in jeans rather than her usual suit skirt or pants. She brought the pot over and refilled all our mugs, then rejoined us.
“It’s not a big deal,” she said. “Your basic story of foolish first love. My first year sociology professor had a teaching assistant whom I was attracted to. He and I got involved. It would have been unwise even if he’d been sincere, but he wasn’t. I thought he’d singled me out from all those first years, that I was particularly bright, pretty, special.” She shook her head impatiently. “All those ridiculous things we tell ourselves when our heads are in the clouds, and we’re seeing what we want to see.”
Yes. That’s how it had been with Mark.
“That’s exactly how it was with Jeffrey,” Tree said.
Kat nodded. “That’s how it was for me, with so many of those egotistical jerks I dated. Why didn’t you tell us this before, Mom?”
Mom glanced at Theresa. “Your romance with Jeffrey happened so quickly; I only met him at the registry office wedding. I didn’t know there was anything wrong until he betrayed you.” Then she turned to Kat. “As for you, I’ve said over and over that you were making poor choices. You didn’t want to listen.”
“It’s hard to listen when you’re being criticized,” I said, understanding that Kat and I had more in common than I’d realized.
Kat shot me a surprised glance. “Yes, it is. And Mom, you never said you’d made the same mistake. If you had, I might have paid more attention.”
Our mother, normally so vigorous and competent, looked uncertain again. “Perhaps I should have.” She gazed from Kat to Tree. “Perhaps I should have told you, too. Maybe I could have helped you get over your bitterness so you could give other men a chance. Like I did with your dad.”
Tree nodded. “It was hard to give Damien a chance. But I’m so glad I did.”
“I’m glad you did too, dear,” Mom said. “And Kat, I’m glad you finally found a man who realizes how special you are.” Gaze encompassing me and Merilee now, she went on. “It’s not such a bad thing to make a mistake. Not if you learn from it, so you’ll know and appreciate the real thing when it comes along.”
Kat and Tree nodded, but Merilee just looked troubled. It must be hard for her to identify with this conversation.
Tree nudged my shoulder with hers. “Do better than I did. Mark was your first, like Jeffrey was mine. Don’t let him mess you up for years and years.”
Did I want to tell them the truth after all this time? This felt so rare and special, all the women in the family gathered around the kitchen table sharing confidences. Sharing mistakes, which wasn’t something Mom and Tree, in particular, often did.
Slowly, I said, “No, Mark was my second. Travis was my first.”
“Travis?” Merilee asked. “Who’s Travis?”
Tree and Kat shook their heads, but Mom said, “The boy you ran away with. The one with the motorbike. Your dad and I wondered how serious you were about him. Whether you were in love or just rebellious and looking for fun. When you came back—”
“You blew it all off,” Kat said. “I remember now. You said you’d had a fun summer hanging around the beach in the Okanagan, but Travis was a loser and it was time to find another guy.”
“Or guys,” Mom said. “That was when you decided you didn’t want to tie yourself down with one boy.” She captured my hand and gripped it warmly. “What happened, Jenna?”
I took a deep breath, then let it out and told them the simple version. “He cheated on me. I loved him and he told me he loved me, but he was cheating on me and he ran off with some other girl.” I gave a wry half-smile. “Like you said, Mom, just your basic old stupid first love.” Except, of course, it had been much more. It had cost me so much.
For a moment, I was tempted to tell them the rest of it, about the PID, the surgery, my inability to have children. But this closeness, this sharing of confidences was so new, I wasn’t ready to trust it. Trust didn’t always work out well for me.
“Anyhow,” I said with a shrug, “I figured, you can enjoy men without setting yourself up for all that pain. And I definitely have.” It had been easy. No man had tempted me into loving him, not until Mark. That’s how it would be again, once I got over him.
“Enjoy,” Kat repeated. “But it’s a whole different thing when you love each other.” Her chestnut brown eyes searched mine. “You know that. That’s what you felt with Mark.”
I shrugged again, unable to deny it, or the ache in my heart that made my eyes damp.
“What did he do?” Mom asked. “Can I take him to court and kick his butt?”
She startled a laugh out of me and my sisters. “Sadly, no. But thanks for the thought.”
“Come on, Jenna,” Merilee said, blue eyes warm. “We want to help.”
“We’re not your old bitchy sisters,” Kat said, her own eyes twinkling. “We’re the new, improved version.”
I sensed truth in that. Enough that I’d take a chance with them. “I thought he loved me for who I was.”
Kat nodded. “He said those nice things, like about you being a butterfly.”
“And that was a compliment?” Mom asked.
“Butterflies pollinate flowers,” Tree explained. “He was making an analogy. Jenna flits from project to project, but whenever she lands she does good in the world.”
“That’s rather nice,” Mom said slowly, then leveled her steady gaze on me. “And it’s also pretty accurate. A fact we don’t give you enough credit for.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“But that sounds as if he does love you for who you are,” Merilee said. “I’m lost.”
“I thought the same thing. But it turns out, he wants more than a butterfly.” I shook my head, frustrated and hurt all over again. “He comes across as kind of unconventional—he’s not big on marriage, doesn’t want to settle in one place—but what he really wants is a woman who’ll do exactly what he wants. Someone who sticks to one cause—his cause, of course—and who studies and specializes and devotes her life to it the way he does.”
Silence greeted me. So I said, “I know, I know, you think the same way. He said I should grow up, just like you’ve been saying forever.” I shook my head, pissed off at myself. “I shouldn’t have told you this. Of course you’ll take his side.”
Merilee leaned forward and took one of my hands in both of hers. “I take your side. You should be whoever you want to be, not what he says you should be.”
“True,” Tree said. “You shouldn’t change just to please some man. Or—sorry, Mom—to please your parents. But Jenna, you do have talents and an engaging personality and lots of energy. If you did find one thing you felt passionate about and devoted yourself to it, think how much you could
accomplish.”
A compliment, with a hidden but. I had lots of potential, but I wasn’t making the most of it. Gee, where had I heard that before?
“And you do care about the environment,” Merilee said. “You’re, like, a nature-lover.”
Kat nodded. “You are. But you don’t want to devote your life to that cause?”
“I … I’m saying, no one gets to tell me what I should do.”
“No,” she said. “They don’t.”
We were all silent for a few minutes. Mom got up, went to the cupboard, and came back with a box of chocolate Milano cookies. When she opened it, we all took one. I sipped coffee, ate chocolate, and glanced around at the faces of four women who’d put aside everything else—Mom’s job, Mer-ilee’s wedding plans—because they cared about me.
Life still sucked, but this, right now, was a pretty amazing moment.
Mom handed me another cookie. “Does he love you?”
“Not any longer. But … yeah, he’d said he was falling in love with me, and that’s how I feel—felt—too. But I don’t want I love you, but love!”
“What?” she asked.
I put the cookie down. “This is going to sound rude, especially this morning when you’re being so nice to me, but I don’t know how else to say it. I mean the kind of thing I’ve heard all my life. I love you, but you’re not good enough.”
“Jenna—” Her brow furrowed. “Is that how I’ve made you feel?”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah. You and Dad.” My sisters, too, but then we all picked on each other pretty equally.
“You’ve made all of us feel that way,” Tree said quietly.
“What?” I turned to her.
“Damn,” Mom said vehemently.
“Sorry,” Tree said. “This is about Jenna and Mark.”
“You’re right,” Mom said. “But what the two of you just said makes me think. Of course your dad and I love you. You’re our wonderful, beautiful daughters. It’s because we love you so much that we worry about you, want you to be happy, want you to be everything you can be. And so …” She sighed. “And so we push. Perhaps we push too hard. Or we do it wrong.”
She picked up her coffee mug, gripped it in both hands, then put it down again, and we four sat in silence. Had Mom ever before admitted she and Dad might be wrong?
“For that, I’m sorry,” she said.
My mouth fell open. “Mom?”
She focused on me, eyes sharp. “However, loving someone doesn’t necessarily mean you think they’re perfect just as they are.”
“That’s true,” Kat said.
“Yeah, right,” I said. “You only say that because you kept picking those seriously flawed guys. Now you have Nav, and he seems pretty perfect to me. Creative, successful, super nice, gorgeous, he’s even got that great accent, and he adores you just the way you are.”
She snorted.
“Kat?” I said.
“In Montreal, Nav dressed like a starving student and he had shaggy hair and a beard and mustache that covered half his face. We argued all the time because I said appearance was important, and he said I was obsessed with it. Turns out, he had issues stemming from his parents and a former girlfriend.”
When I opened my mouth to ask, she waved a hand. “A story for later. As for him adoring me the way I am, yes, Nav did love me. But he sure didn’t think I was perfect. He got me to take a long, hard look inside myself and confront some insecurities. He helped me figure out why I’d chosen the kind of men I did, the ones who were bad for me. So, we both did some changing.” She shot me a pointed look. “Some growing up.”
“So did Damien and I,” Tree said. “Another long story, but we learn from each other and we’re better people for having met.”
“You’re more confident,” I said, beginning to understand. “Not about your work—you were always confident about that—but about yourself as a woman.” I picked up the cookie Mom had given me and began to nibble.
Tree nodded. “And even with my work, I’m moving in a different direction so I can reach more people and, hopefully, help more people. Damien and I are doing that together.”
Theresa Fallon, working with a man again? She’d never done that since her ex betrayed her. Wow, she’d really dealt with some heavy trust issues.
Mom rested her hand on my forearm. “Is that what Mark hopes for with you? Does he have a similar vision, of the two of you as partners doing something worthwhile.”
He did. But … I wasn’t that kind of person. Was I? A person shouldn’t have to change their basic nature to be in a relationship. I turned to Merilee. “You haven’t said anything, M. How about you and Matt? Have each of you changed, learned from each other?”
“We grew up together, learned everything together. If we changed, it was day by day, in small ways, so we never noticed.” She sucked her lips inward and pressed them together, the way she did when she was thinking hard about something. “For all of you, you knew who you were as grown women, then you met these great guys. For me, I have no idea who I’d have been as a woman if I hadn’t known Matt.”
“You’ve always been a unit,” I said. “That’s how it worked for you two, but I don’t want that. I’m independent, a free spirit.” I glanced around the table. “A flake, if that’s what you want to call it. Maybe, just maybe, with Mark I felt a craving to really love a guy and have him love me back, but I don’t want to be half of a unit. Especially when he’s the leader and I just follow along.”
“Each couple finds their own way,” Mom said. “Your dad and I have completely different jobs and interests and we’re very independent, but we support each other one hundred percent. Kat and Nav have very different jobs, too. Theresa and Damien have built separate careers, but they’re going to work on a project as a team. It’ll challenge them. They’re both intelligent, strong-minded people. They’ll fight.”
Tree chuckled. “Count on it.”
“And the product they come up with,” Mom went on, “will be a joint one and better than either of them could have achieved alone.”
Tree nodded. “That’s how it could be with you and Mark. If that’s what you wanted. You don’t have to be the follower; you’d bring your own skills and talents and make a team.”
It did sound appealing. Two independent people with complementary skills working together as a team. On environmental projects … and maybe on raising children. My heart lifted at the thought. Then it dropped again. For Mark and I to be a team, I’d have to become the person he wanted me to be. The person Mom and Dad had always wanted me to be. Gently, I touched the butterflies on my shoulder. No one should have to give up their basic self in order to win love.
“But it has to be what you want,” Mom said. “You know what I’d suggest, don’t you?”
“Make a pro and con list,” Kat said promptly.
Now, there was familiar, if annoying, ground. But this morning, emotionally exhausted and feeling more in tune with my mom and sisters than ever before, it wasn’t in me to be annoyed. “I haven’t heard that for a while.”
“Because every time I started to say it,” Mom said dryly, “you stormed off, climbed into Mellow Yellow, and disappeared somewhere. I know. That kind of decision-making process is mine, and you’ve always preferred a, shall we say, less structured one?”
“I trust in the universe, and it rarely lets me down.”
“It sent you Mark,” Mom said.
“Now you just have to figure out what you’re going to do with him,” Kat said.
“If you change your mind and want to make a pro and con list,” Tree said, “we’ll all help.”
“Uh, this is going to sound rude,” I aimed for a joking tone, “but why are y’all suddenly being so nice to me?”
Tree and Kat exchanged glances, then Kat spoke. “I guess we’ve mellowed since we got together with Nav and Damien. We realized some things.” She glanced at Mom. “Like, that each of us had some sister-type issues that it was time to outgrow.”<
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“Hallelujah,” Mom said. “In your own ways, you were always so competitive.” Then she grimaced slightly. “I suppose your Dad and I had something to do with that, putting so much pressure on you.”
None of us spoke, then Tree squared her shoulders. “That’s true. None of us is perfect, not even the two of you. But we all love each other, and we can be better people. Such as”—she nodded toward Mom—“staying home from the office to help one of your daughters who’s hurting.”
“I should have done it more,” she admitted.
None of us responded. After a moment, she said, “Should I make more coffee?”
“I’m coffeed out,” Merilee said, and the rest of us nodded.
Mom gave me a tentative smile. “How are you doing, Jenna?”
“I’m confused. Last night, I told myself I’d been stupid, and I was never going to let myself love a man again.”
“That sounds lonely,” Merilee said softly.
“I wasn’t lonely in the past. I was having fun. Then I met Mark and … I barely know him but I’ve never felt this way before.” Now, the prospect of a future without him did feel lonely. I propped my elbows on the table, rested my face in my hands, and sighed. “How do you know if a man’s the right one?”
All four of them exchanged glances. Kat said, “For me, it was like a sudden blinding revelation—of something that should have been obvious for a while. Theresa?”
“It grew from the moment I first saw Damien. Really quickly, like it was inevitable. I’ve never felt anything like it.”
I nodded. That was how it had been for me, with Mark. “Merilee? No point asking you, I guess, since you and Matt chose each other when you were seven. You’ve been like Siamese twins.”
“Best friends who grew up together,” Mom said. “Right, Merilee?”
“Yes. And how about you, Mom? How did you know Dad was the one?”
“I made a pro and con list,” she said promptly.
“Oh God, Mom,” I said, then I noticed her eyes were twinkling. “You’re teasing, aren’t you?”
“A little. Honestly, I did make a list. But only after my heart had spoken. You know me, I’m very practical, so I made a list to make sure I wasn’t getting carried away and making a bad choice.” She smiled at me. “So I guess, in answer to your question, we each had our own way of knowing. Only you can know for sure if Mark is your special man.”