“I’m a reasonably intelligent man, but I can’t figure out how we got from there to here.”
I blow out a heavy breath and admit to my father something I’ve barely been able to admit to myself.
“Mom’s family—she ever talk about them to you?” I already know the answer, but it’s easier to broach the topic this way. At least it’s less embarrassing than admitting the truth outright.
“Never used to,” he says. “Now with the Facebook and the Tweeter stuff, she sees things online and gets curious, then investigates. She talks about them then.”
I snort. Dad knows it’s not called the Facebook or the Tweeter, but he refuses to evolve enough to admit it. The one time he posted a photo of Hope on his wall, he acted like he didn’t know how it got there until the praise poured in. Now he’s all about the Facebook.
“Must be hard seeing your family but not being welcome to interact,” I say and hope he understands.
“Did I tell you that your mother and I had lunch with Chris and Monica a few weeks back?” he says happily and turns to face me. He’s got one elbow leaning on the railing, and he’s smiling.
I turn to give him the same respect and raise my eyebrows.
“You know damn well you didn’t.” I avoid accusing anyone of doing anything, but I’m silently cursing my mother for involving herself in shit she shouldn’t be. She’s a fixer, and she doesn’t like to see people not living their lives as fully as they can. That’s her excuse for meddling, at least.
“And I wasn’t going to, because you and Mel are both grown, but apparently your brain hasn’t caught up with the rest of you, so here goes. Monica contacted your mom for lunch because you’re an idiot. Lunch was good, by the way. Halfway through, Chris and I snuck off for a few drinks while the women hashed out how to get a wedding out of this mess.”
“It should be embarrassing to know that you all were sitting around talking about this. It should be weird to me that my mother is trying to get me married off. But it’s not. Know why?” I say.
“Because it’s normal,” he muses with a smirk. “Born into a family without boundaries or privacy. Don’t know why you’d expect it now. Just be glad neither of them brought up kids.”
“So go on,” I say and clear my throat. Mom may never have been in love with Lydia the way she is with Mel, but she certainly brought up marriage and kids enough. In Mom’s mind, we’d been together too long to not be married with a few kids. But Lydia was never it for me, and I guess I always knew it, because I hated it when Mom brought up getting married. It felt restrictive and archaic. The idea of owning Lydia wasn’t something I was interested in. But with Mel, it’s all I can think about. I want to own her and consume her the way she consumes me. I should have known I didn’t really love Lydia. How did I not know?
“Honestly, I didn’t have a defense for your behavior. I mean, what man in his right mind surprises the woman he loves and then goes on to ignore her during his entire trip?”
“Dad,” I say in warning. I feel a lecture that I don’t need coming on.
“Then Monica says that it doesn’t make sense. They showed you the best time on your trip. Upgraded your and your sister’s seats on the plane to first class. Changed out your hotel room at the Days Inn to something fancy that I can’t remember. They even took you to the nicest restaurants in the city.”
“The Kincaids are very generous,” I say through gritted teeth.
“I used to worry about it, you know—how to give your mother what she was used to. I used to think she couldn’t be happy on the Lower East Side with a guy like me. One who couldn’t afford a town car and summers in Europe. A guy who buys her a wedding ring from a pawn shop.”
“You don’t worry about it anymore?” I ask, allowing myself a sliver of hope.
“Nah,” he says. “Five kids and a grandkid later, I’m pretty sure she’s with me for the long haul. I’m lucky, though. No in-laws meddling in my business, being nasty by giving us expensive things I can’t buy her myself. That would suck.”
I laugh wryly. “Finally we’re getting to the point.”
“You’re the one who took me on this trip down memory lane.”
“Guilty,” I say. With a deep breath, I decide we’ve been here long enough and I need to just say it already.
“I wanted to make that trip on my own dime. I bought my own ticket, got my own hotel room, and was prepared to pay for my own meals. It’s not like I’m living off a proby’s salary. I can take care of myself. I let the plane ticket go because Monica begged me to. I let the hotel go because it was too hard to explain why I’d rather be a half hour away in my two-star than around the corner in a five-star, and once they all left, I’d planned on staying in Mel’s apartment anyway.
“We’d go out to eat and they wouldn’t let me pay. Then they left, and I thought it wouldn’t feel so shitty—the charity—because it’d be just us, and how could everything not be right with me and Mel?”