That was the first time he’d used that word in regards to our son. He’d trusted his judgment and self-assurance when he came out to us at fourteen, and he’d been alongside us at every march. But the college thing was something ingrained in David’s blue blood, and it had been proving hard for him to let go of.
So now that David had gone and died before he could tell his mother that Ryder would not be going to college, I got the delightful task.
“Just as long as you know you’re not allowed to physically assault a sixty-year-old woman,” Ryder said, gathering his backpack. Designer too, because I was caught up in it all.
I sighed. “I would never,” I said with faux innocence.
He grinned his father’s grin, the one that cut through my heart, and leaned forward to kiss my cheek. “I’ll see you later. Love you.”
“Love you, too,” I replied, trying to keep my voice steady.
Trying to keep my life steady.
“Do you want me to come with you?” my sister Alexis asked, leaning against the doorjamb to my walk-in closet, watching me finish my makeup.
The closet itself was a dream, larger than most en suite bathrooms, custom designed for me for my thirtieth birthday. Everything was white, and an entire wall at the back was dedicated to handbags. There was another wall for shoes. The island in the middle had drawers for jewelry, designer sunglasses, and scarves.
In a small corner sat a plush chair and a vanity with a gold-rimmed mirror and marbled surface covered with expensive makeup, perfumes, and lotions that cost enough for a deposit on a sensible car.
Items a thirteen-year-old me from a working-class background could never have dreamed of. Things I’d been certain would bring me happiness. But it wasn’t the presence of beautiful things that brought happiness. It was the absence of the one integral thing in my life that made happiness impossible.
Before David was gone, I’d tricked myself into thinking that beautiful things could make a beautiful life. A carefully curated Instagram would mean something. The perfect sample size would bring something. A gleaming white smile would reach the inside. I was very good at it all, curating my life so it looked flawless to everyone, even me, as long as I didn’t look close enough and see the cracks.
But now there was nothing but cracks. Fragments of a beautiful lie.
“No,” I said, leaning forward in my chair to apply my lipstick. A mauvy nude. The perfect shade for my filler injected lips. I’d had them touched up just yesterday, on the morning of the first anniversary of David’s death. That was my deadline. I’d given myself this year. To fall apart. To not wash my hair for two weeks. To be rude to neighbors. Not answer the door when my mother-in-law came knocking. Shut out the world that didn’t include my boys and my sister. The one who had arrived two days ago so I wouldn’t be alone on this pivotal date.
Alexis didn’t say anything about the abrupt change in my appearance, didn’t comment on my frozen forehead and swollen lips. That wasn’t how Alexis worked. She made my boys dinner—some healthy crap that was a shock to all of our systems but actually was palatable, or it would have been if I was still eating. It had been a year, therefore I was back to my diet of as little food as possible so I looked as thin as possible. It was not healthy, and something I’d have worked much harder to eliminate if we’d had a girl, because no way was I modeling such an unhealthy relationship with food and body image to a teenage girl already going through enough shit.
As it was, we had two boys that ate food like it was going out of fashion and didn’t really understand the delicate balance between nourishing your body and tipping the scales so you couldn’t fit in your skinny jeans.
Fuck, I was glad we didn’t have girls.
I glanced back up at Alexis after spraying myself with Chanel. “As much as I would prefer you to go in my stead and pretend to be Ryder’s mom, I think I need to actually start acting like I am.”
I slipped into a pair of Jimmy Choo mules. They were spike heeled and not exactly appropriate for the parent-teacher thing. Most of the ‘cool moms,’ of which I used to be, wore some insanely expensive sneaker or Gucci loafers. But I decided that I needed the heels. They were going to be my new signature. Something outlandish, impractical, and most importantly, painful.
My outfit was all white in a direct rebellion to the expectation I should don black for the rest of my life, despite the fact I really wanted to. White tailored slacks, a silk tank tucked in. A diamond choker slung around my neck, sparkling with wealth and again inappropriate for a parent-teacher conference. But I was sending my youngest to school in tuxedos so I figured I’d go for it.
“You’re being a good mother,” Alexis said in response to what I’d left unsaid. That I’d let my boys down in ways I could never repair this past year.
I grabbed a purse—a beige Chanel boy bag, my ‘push present’ from David when I had Jax—from the wall and then looked at her. “You don’t have to lie about that, babe. I know what a dumpster fire I’ve been as a parent. If it weren’t for you, my kids would be surviving on chicken nuggets and whatever other fast food I’d ordered.”
I slipped my lipstick into my purse, not looking at her.
“Not to mention, I’ve not mentioned the word homework to either of them since this all happened. They could be failing school for all I know. I don’t open mail, I just throw it out. The only reason our bills are paid is because David has direct deposits going out monthly. If it weren’t for that, we wouldn’t have water or electricity.”
The weight of just how terrible and selfish I’d been this past year settled quickly and fatally on my shoulders.
“Stop,” Alexis said firmly, frowning as she walked toward me. “You suffered a loss. An indescribable loss. Your boys lost their father. Your world imploded. So you not making them fucking apple slices isn’t what turns you into a terrible mother. You letting Jax wear his tuxedo to school with a smile is what makes you a great one. Letting Ryder be comfortable in his own skin when a lot of parents would try to change him. You are raising boys who hug their mom, tell her they love her, and do their homework despite you not mentioning it because you have good boys.”
She paused, eyes running over me with a knowing that only came from someone who’d been my best friend for life. We had our fights, to be sure, but we’d been inseparable ever since she was born.
“I know you’re pretty much an expert at emotional self-harm, and I know what I’m saying isn’t going to penetrate deep enough, but I’ll say it anyway,” Alexis continued. “I’ll continue to remind you you’re a good person, a good mother going through a horrific period in life.” She glanced down. “And you’re doing it in fucking fabulous shoes.”
I smiled weakly.
She was right. As nice as the words were, they bounced off my new hard exterior. I’d have to make peace with my self-hatred, my disappointment in myself for this past year. It was what it was.
“You don’t have to go, you know,” Alexis said, echoing Ryder’s words from this morning, in that same concerned tone.
Ah, if only that were true. I really, really did not want to walk the halls that a teenage David had once walked. Did not want to sit across from a teacher as a single mother. No, as a widow. Despite my expertly applied makeup and Botox, it would be seared into my forehead, that label. Not only that, but my actions this past year. Unbecoming to a member of the Black Mountain event committee—I’d quit that at some point by an email I signed off with profanity.