Maybe if she could accept me for who I was, I would have been open to curbing my more abrasive tendencies. I could be pushy and had put my foot in my mouth more times than I could count. I wouldn’t deny it. But my mother hating those qualities made me adamant about not changing a thing. Her conservative nature made me more apt to be brash, and her need to follow the rules made me want to break every one of them. I wasn’t sure what made me so contrary, but it had felt imperative when I was growing up to be as unlike my mother as I could manage.
When I was thirteen, she forbade me from wearing a triangle-cut bikini because it was too revealing. After buying one in secret, I’d smuggle it to swim parties and changed suits after my mother dropped me off. If she curled her hair, I ironed mine straight. She insisted I took Catholic confirmation classes, so I made out with my classmate, Patrick Murphy, in the confessional when Father Jacoby left us unattended.
The more she pushed me, the harder I pushed back. A psychologist would have had a field day with our dynamic. Written papers and analyzed the shit out of it. Maybe someday I’d go talk to a shrink and work through those issues, but for now, I was content to be myself and watch my mother squirm.
“That’s enough,” my father cut in on his way past the kitchen. “I’ve had a long day, and I’m not interested in hearing you two go at it.”
Sometimes I wished Uncle Enzo and Aunt Lottie were my parents. They were so much more relaxed, and Aunt Lottie was loads of fun. She and Mom were best friends, but I couldn’t fathom why. Alessia and I had a similar dynamic, with Al being more like my mom and me like Aunt Lottie, but Al wasn’t as uptight as my mother. I couldn’t imagine Ma would ever be fun to hang around. Hell, even her cooking was dull.
I took in the lemon pepper chicken and Brussels sprouts with a mental groan. I wasn’t any kind of chef, but would it kill her to make a casserole occasionally?
“Giada, will you go up and tell Val that dinner’s ready?”
“I’m on it.” I walked halfway up the stairs before calling out my sister’s name at the top of my lungs and grinning at the mental image of my mother cringing. She hated for us girls to raise our voices and would fuss about not living in the ghetto whenever we shouted. It was petty of me to pull her strings like that, but I couldn’t help it. Being at their house made me feel like a belligerent teen again, and it only made things worse when she lectured me five minutes after I walked in.
“You and Mom at it again?” Val groaned as she started down the stairs.
“You know how she is. It’s not my fault.”
“Bullshit. I know exactly how she is, and I know how you are. You love to poke the angry bear. I may not see eye to eye with her, but I don’t have a desire to argue and make my life miserable.”
“That’s easy to say coming from the child who can do no wrong,” I grumbled.
“Doing wrong is one thing, but flaunting it in front of their faces is another. Admit it, you get off on the conflict.”
My jaw dropped. “I do not! I just refuse to kowtow to her every whim.”
Val paused her descent to glare at me.
“Whatever,” I muttered, pulling out my phone when it buzzed in my back pocket and ignoring my sister’s eye roll as she walked past me.
I had a text from an unknown number. Did you think I wouldn’t find you?
My heartbeats tripped over themselves as I read the message. What the hell was it supposed to mean? Who would send me such a text? It could have been a prank or a wrong number. I debated blocking the number and erasing the text, but my curiosity got the better of me. Who is this?
No reply. So strange. Altogether, it wasn’t necessarily threatening, so I ordered myself not to freak out. There were an infinite number of possible explanations for the message. Hell, it could be an old high school classmate screwing with me. There was no telling.
I shoved my phone back in my pocket, took in a deep cleansing breath, and forced myself toward the dining room and another tense family dinner.
***
“Do you think it’s my fault I have a shit relationship with my mom?” I asked Alessia the next day at one of our weekly lunches. I’d been thinking about what Val said and decided I’d get my cousin’s opinion. She may not have known my darkest secret, but she knew me better than anyone else.
“I’m not sure any one person is at fault. You two are just very different.”
“Yeah, but you and I are different and that doesn’t stop us from being friends.”
“True, but a mother-daughter relationship is much more complicated. Did you two have a fight or something?”
“I was over last night for dinner, and Val accused me of getting off on arguing with Mom. I thought she was being absurd, but the more I examined her claim, the more I wondered why I didn’t just give in to Mom a little more. It wouldn’t necessarily kill me to bite my tongue.” I pushed around the food on my plate until I noticed Alessia had gone silent. When I looked up, I found my cousin gaping at me.
“That’s it.” She tossed down her fork. “I’m taking you to a doctor. You’re clearly delirious.”
I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. “Ha-ha. So you do think it’s my fault, don’t you?”
“No, don’t put words in my mouth. I know Aunt Mia isn’t exactly nurturing, but I also know you don’t make the situation any easier.”
“You think I should just bend over and take it when she points out all the ways I don’t measure up?”
“G, you brought this up. Don’t get defensive with me.” Al raised a brow, an unusual warning from my pacifist cousin.
Point taken.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I just don’t understand how else I should act around her.”
“Honestly, I think you’d see it all differently if you had something else in your life—a job or a passion. Something that brough you joy and occupied your mind so that her petty jabs wouldn’t seem so important. Not to say they wouldn’t hurt, but if you had other priorities, your relationship with her wouldn’t weigh so heavily. I know you say you’re good with filling your days going to spas and shopping, but I disagree. You need more.”
My first reaction was to be defensive, but I tamped that down and thought about what she was saying. It was good in theory, but the application was far more complicated. “How am I supposed to figure out what I’m passionate about? I’ve never found anything that captures my interest the way you love working at Triton or the way Sofia loves art. Maybe I don’t have any passions.” I slumped back in my chair, losing my appetite.
I was lucky enough to have a trust fund that floated my bills and kept me living a life of luxury, but there was truth in what Al had said. I talked a big game about loving my freedom and preferring to go to nail appointments rather than a day job. It wasn’t as fulfilling as I would have liked. I needed something more in my life, but I had no clue what would fill that void.
“I think the only way you can figure it out is to try things. Maybe look into some different volunteer opportunities. There are all kinds of classes out there for every hobby under the sun. Try a few and see what captures your interest.”
I sighed heavily. The task sounded daunting, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that no amount of crocheting or serving breakfast at a soup kitchen would make me happy. I needed something more. Something edgy. Something Alessia would never understand.