“Mom, I’m getting married.”

     Paula shifted her grip on her coffee mug so that her big calloused hands wouldn’t break the china handle. The mug had been a present from this very daughter after all, knowing as Sally did, Paula’s love of pretty things.

     The gesture marked a hesitation before her answer, and Paula felt the air in the room curdle. She’d reacted wrong. Confirmation of her instinct was already carving itself across Sally’s face as her daughter frowned and waited in the lengthening silence.

     Paula swallowed. Her throat clutched. Her gaze flicked to Sally’s left hand and its naked ring finger.

     “Oh honey, that’s wonderful.” Her tone was too even. Too rehearsed. Sally’s shoulders adopted a defensive slump beneath her jean jacket, and she crossed her arms over her chest.

     Paula felt exhaustion settle into her own body language, dragging her shoulders together, begging her to just drop the damn mug, aching to lay down on the couch in a stupor of sadness and ignore the world. The battle was already lost. Two seconds delay and the wrong tone of voice and that was that. A defining moment of the mother daughter relationship, one about which she’d spent half her life and all of Sally’s dreaming, was over. Set in stone and ruined. The fight they were about to have where Sally would scream this obvious truth at her was window dressing. Paula didn’t like Sally’s fiancé, so the moment was doomed.

     The fantasy crumbled, its details reflecting like the fractal shards of a broken mirror.

     She’d pictured it for years. Sally would tell her. And Paula’s grin would be so wide her cheeks would ache. Tears would fill her eyes and she’d engulf her little girl in a hug. They’d both cry. Sally would scream with joy. Then she’d show her the ring, about which Paula would gush as Sally related the proposal story. Then they’d run out to Paula’s Daddy’s gleaming pick up, and speed down the dusty small-town road to the nearest drug store where they’d buy every single bridal magazine on which they could lay hands.

     But that would never happen. Not now that Sally was going to marry Trent. The jobless, manipulative wonder who was content to let Sally support him once she got her nursing license. If she ever finished school at this rate. She’d already taken a semester off while waiting to be accepted. More likely, he’d get her pregnant, then Sally would end up supporting both him and a baby on her CNA certificate, and work ten times as hard for less money.

     Maybe Paula was imagining the worst. Maybe the tattooed, vape puffing, Bunyan bearded, unemployed creep would surprise her by growing up. Maybe he’d get a job, stop using the f word like a comma, and buck Paula’s expectations. But even if he didn’t, and even if the relationship ended in snot and tears the way she expected, she would still never have this moment of learning her daughter was getting married back. Round two, if one ever came, would be a little dimmer because it would conjure this ruined moment’s ghost.

     She looked at her daughter. Beautiful Sally. Her caramel colored hair stylishly grazing her jawline. Freckles dusted across her nose. Cornflower blue eyes narrowed in suspicion and disappointment. How had she spent her whole life raising this girl as her friend, nursing every scraped knee, encouraging every failed music lesson and mediocre talent show, patiently waiting for her to shuffle through majors until she picked what Paula had known she’d pick all along. How had she done all that, and ended up here?

     What the hell happened?

 

#

    

     “Mom, I’m gonna need a ride this week.”

     Shelly finished chopping the heap of celery at her fingertips and added it to the ancient pot whose dim copper bottom bore the smoky fingerprints of a dozen over-cookings of thick meaty liquids.

     “Sure, honey,” she said, then grabbed the pot lid. “Just let me know when,” she added lid to pot and turned to the refrigerator to fetch a slab of flank steak. “Cause I gotta check with your Dad first, and I got pet schedules to work around.”

     “I know, Mom,” Faye added. Her tone was pleasant enough, but to Shelly, these pronouncements, “I know” always felt a whiff rude. Inconsiderate. Like the child was sideways scolding her own mother for providing her with necessary information. And why didn’t she call her Mamma? Faye pressed on. “I’ve got to go to orientation, for the new job? The EKG tech, thing?”

     Shelly’s momentary irritation vanished in a wave of relief and gratitude. The new job! Thank you oh merciful, Lord, the new job. God was so good. Shelly had been so grateful when Faye had decided to get that little certificate thing for working in hospitals. Even if the work was, as Faye had described it, “Slapping stickers on people and pressing a button.” At least hospitals meant full time and meant insurance. Maybe the child could even put some savings back and get a decent car or apartment and stop mooching off her sister.

     It never failed to surprise Shelly to compare her adult daughters to their childhood selves. When little, it was Dayna, not Faye, who’d been the problem child over whom she’d fretted. The child with a temper and penchant for back talk that had kept her in spankings and time out. Faye had been the sweet one about whom she’d never had to worry. Cut to adulthood, and the hot tempered one had mellowed and started dressing like a hippie with a leather fetish, but was a nurse with a mortgage. Faye, on the other hand, had appeared to fall to pieces, changing majors three times to find something she could “fit the writing around,” before setting on High School English teacher, then sobbing her way through student teaching, never applying for a single teaching job, going back for her Masters in writing instead. Now she lived with the nurse while writing stories about queers and murderers. And she was getting fat.

     The certificate that had led to this new job in the eyes of other mothers might look like a come down which defeated the point of the Masters, but all Shelly cared about was the presence of insurance and a full-time steady income. Stability of even that small variety was a welcome change from her eldest's mopey vacillating. Faye seemed to view the job's chief virtue being a three day per week schedule that would leave time for the writing.

     “Oh, honey, that’s wonderful! Like I said, tell me what day and when.”

     A shadow of irritation wafted over Faye’s face, and she muttered, “I’d take myself, but Dayna’s working, so she’ll have the car.”

     There it was. The rude tone again. Why did she do this? Why did she act like she’d rather swallow a live centipede than ask for her Mamma’s help? Especially when Shelly was so willing to give it?

     “You know I don’t mind, honey.”

     “I know.”

     Shelly looked at her daughter. Long, dark, curling hair pulled back in a sloppy bun. Her once pretty figure padded with fat that strained seam and waistband. Her face, still pretty, but wreathed with a sullen cast to the mouth and eyes. Where was the happy little girl who’d said “yes ma’am” and written stories about mermaids in her coloring books?

     What the hell happened?

 

#

 

     “Mom, I’m going to Paris.”

     Vickie’s stomach took a sour twist as she digested the news along with her afternoon glass of chardonnay. Through the boozy, golden haze of jealousy that rose up from her subconscious like fog on a coastline, she managed a brittle smile.

     “Oh honey, that’s wonderful,” she said. Years of practice managed to keep her tone just at the edge of congratulatory without warping snide. If she allowed herself to sound snide, her daughter would sense it. Angela had a predator’s nose for weakness. It wasn’t a cruel observation. It was true. She’d inherited it from her mother after all.

     Vickie forced herself to sip from the glass despite a trembling desire to chug the remainder. She cleared her throat. “So. Business or pleasure trip?” she asked.

     Angela, whose naturally strawberry blonde and salon perfect hair was glowing in the light from the bay window at which she sat, sipped from a tall glass of sparkling water. She swallowed delicately and then wiped away a lipstick stain with her thumb. “Business of course. But Todd spent his own money to book us a couple extra days. During the business portion, I’ll have the city to myself. When he’s finished, we’ll see what we make of the place as a couple.”

     Vickie’s next sip was less measured. “It sounds divine, dear.”

     “I doubt it can top Milan or Florence. Hell, I’ve heard rumors even Prague beats it for grandeur, being untouched by the war and all. Once you’ve seen one dirty European city, you’ve seen them all.”

     The longer her daughter talked, the higher Vickie’s pulse rate climbed. She could feel her face growing hot, and her pleasant smile begin to splinter. When she’d been Angela’s age, she’d been the cosmopolitan toast of her social circle. The one who had her clothes shipped in from Europe, not Saks Fifth Avenue. The one who inspired the flaming cheeks and cracked mime smiles in all her so-called friends. Then she’d gotten pregnant.

     It’d been fun at first because she’d beaten them all at the pregnancy game too. She’d gained no extra weight. And Angela, of course, was the prettiest baby of the pack. She’d sent her to the best schools. The girl brought home the best grades, was the best dancer, the best pianist. Everything that made Vickie look like the perfect mother. Then somewhere in the midst of puberty, Angela had brought home the best-looking boyfriend and Vickie had become wallpaper.

     She looked at her daughter, sitting there with Vickie’s features, Vickie’s style, Vickie’s eyes, Vickie’s taste, and Vickie’s old iron clad confidence in her utter superiority, while Vickie herself felt small and stale.

     What the hell happened?

The End.