“Probably not. Charlotte’s always been competitive with you, Clara Belle, and sometimes she likes to take her shots whenever and however she can get them in. I’m sorry.” Mom shot me a small smile, continuing to pull on her pearls.
I tried not to act startled by my mom’s apology. I tried to pretend I was used to hearing them, but I wasn’t. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time she’d apologized to me for anything, forgetting the name of the city I lived in every time she asked me how I was doing included.
So I cleared my throat and mirrored her smile. “It’s okay. I think I’ll survive. It’s just utter and total public humiliation. Nothing I haven’t achieved a few times in my lifetime.”
Mom let go of her pearls and cleared her throat. “That reminds me, dear, now that we’re alone, I was hoping to talk to you about Boone . . .”
My neck stiffened. Of course the topic of public humiliation would remind her of her firstborn daughter dating the boy who’d grown up in the double-wide that everyone knew about for a number of reasons.
“I was hoping we’d talked the subject to death by now, after last night and this morning at breakfast.” I checked to see how Avalee was getting along with the zipper. Just thinking about talking about Boone with my mom was making me sweat. Sweat more.
“Yes, but with your father being the way he is, feeling the way he does . . . I was hoping we could discuss you two in a bit more civilized manner. Minus the testosterone.”
Avalee grumbled beneath my armpit, tugging at the zipper but making no progress.
“I don’t remember any of the conversations you and I have had about Boone being civilized, Mom.”
“They weren’t,” she replied, her expression as unapologetic as her tone. “But you were a girl then and living under our roof and under our responsibility. You’re a woman now and have proven yourself capable of making your own decisions.” She waved at me, like me standing in front of her looking like a peach pumpkin was proving her point.
I felt at a loss, again, for how to reply. Was my mom talking to me like an adult? Was she talking to me instead of at me? Was she saying I was capable and accomplished and had proven myself?
“What do you want to know?” I found myself replying. Years ago, I would have marched off in a huff and slammed my bedroom door. I supposed, looking back, they hadn’t been the only unreasonable ones.
“Why now?” she asked. “Why all of these years later are you two back together? Why after everything that happened . . . and with him just walking away from you like that . . .” She looked away, staring through the plate-glass windows lining the front of the shop. If eighteen years of experience hadn’t proven otherwise, I would have almost believed she was close to shedding a few tears. “I don’t want to see you get hurt again like that, Clara Belle. I don’t think I can stand to watch you go through that kind of pain again.”
Avalee stopped messing with my zipper long enough to exchange a look with me after glancing at my mom. I could tell she was just as thrown as I was.
Yeah, I remembered the pain—of course I remembered the tears and feeling like my heart was being shredded by a cheese grater in the months following Boone’s and my fallout—but I never would have guessed my mom had been affected by any of it.
She hadn’t given an indication otherwise. She hadn’t offered a shoulder to let me cry my eyes out on or even a random hug when she’d found me spread out on the porch steps, staring at the end of that long driveway, just waiting for my life to end or for it to start again.
“That won’t happen again. I know it,” I said, shaking my head. “You don’t have to worry, Mom.”
“How can you be sure? He’s done it once. He can do it again.”
Avalee was back to pulling at the zipper, not so gently now.
“Not this time,” I said.
“Why not this time?” Mom lifted an eyebrow and waited for me.
I couldn’t exactly tell her I’d paid him to pose as my plus one so I wouldn’t have to be publicly shamed for showing up to a Southern wedding in my mid-twenties without a husband or a date, but that was a secret I was happy to keep between Boone and me for the rest of our lives. I supposed I could tell her that he was a changed person and we’d matured and had moved beyond teenage intensity, but I knew she wouldn’t be satisfied by any of those answers.
So I went with a different approach.
“He didn’t just hurt me. I hurt him too, Mom. Just as badly.”
She gave a little huff, like she doubted that very much. “You did nothing more hurtful than make a temporary omission. What he did . . . how he left you . . .” She threw up her hands and shook her head, unable to continue.