Identity

“Well.” Olivia sipped at her tea. “Those must’ve been some cookies.”

At Audrey’s burst of laughter, Morgan could only stare.

“Oh, sit down.” Audrey patted a stool. “Gram and I remember what it was like. We’re not going to pry. We really want to pry.”

“It’s killing me,” Olivia admitted.

“But we won’t. I’ll say I missed your first time. I did miss your first time, didn’t I?”

“Yes.” Morgan got a fork, sat. “College. It wasn’t wonderful.”

“I missed yours,” Olivia said to Audrey. “But I knew when you got home from spring break.”

“That uniform. I was a goner.”

“You’re not talking about Dad? Dad was your first?”

“First and only.”

“The only’s your own fault. I bet that sommelier would put the look in your eye that Morgan’s got in hers.”

“Mom. Wasn’t Pa your first?”

“Please.” Snickering, Olivia ate a forkful of cake. “Remember the era. Free love, baby.” She tossed up a peace sign. “No, he wasn’t my first. But he was my best.”

She looked over at Morgan. “I know Miles is a good man. A bit of a workaholic, but that would suit you, as you’re the same. He wouldn’t have pressured you into sex, and you don’t wear the look of a woman who felt pressured. All that matters.”

“I guess I sort of started it. He has turrets.”

“Is that a sexual euphemism? Do I have to look it up in the Urban Dictionary?”

“No, Gram.” Now Morgan laughed. “Literal turrets. On the house. He caught me goggling at them. And he has this adorable dog. I asked if I could see the inside of a turret, which is just wonderful. And one thing led to another.”

“Do you love him? Is that prying?” Audrey wondered.

“I raised a very old-fashioned daughter. I’m still not sure how that happened. Audrey, they’re young, healthy, single adults.”

“I like him,” Morgan qualified. “I’m attracted to him, obviously. He’s so interesting, with all these layers. And yeah, I respect his work ethic and his dedication to the family business. We’ll see where it all goes, but I’m absolutely fine with where it is.

“This cake is fantastic. I remember this cake now. And yeah, I can see the raspberries and cream. Pretty presentation, plus serious yum.”

“You could take some for Miles when you go over tomorrow,” Audrey suggested.

“That’s okay—he has cookies. And I’m picking up a pizza on the way.”

“Ah.” Sitting back, Olivia sighed. “Pizza and sex—those were the days. It’s hard not to envy youth. And now, since I’m old, I’m going up so I can fall asleep reading my book.”

“You’re not old, Gram.” Morgan pushed off the stool to hug her. “You’re timeless. I’ll take care of the dishes.”

“Timeless.” Olivia gave her an extra squeeze. “Even if you weren’t my only grandchild, you’d be my favorite just for that. Good night, ladies.”

“She is timeless,” Audrey agreed. “And I only hope I have her energy in another twenty-odd years.”

Maybe it was the mood, or maybe it was the moment, but Morgan turned to her mother.

“I’m going to pry.”

“I can’t think of a thing I have that’s worth prying into.”

“Why no one since the divorce?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Morgan.” Audrey sighed a little, flushed a little. “I mean, at first I wasn’t sure what to do or where to do it. You were still young enough to need me around, but I had to work. I wasn’t good at anything.”

“Why do you say that? That’s just not true. You could pack up a house on a moment’s notice, then unpack everything in a new place in no time. You ran the house, and when he wasn’t around, you did everything. I barely had chores.”

“I wanted you to make friends, have the kind of happy, easy childhood I’d had. Which was stupid because it wasn’t at all the same for you, ever.”

“It’s not about me right now. I’m asking about you, and I realize I should have asked a long time ago. You weren’t happy. You pretended to be, but you weren’t. Why did you stay?”

“I loved him. Oh, I loved him so much right from the first minute, and it look me a long time to get over that.”

Idly, she turned her teacup around and around in its saucer.

“Maybe that was the problem. I fell so hard, so deep, so fast. I only wanted to be a good wife, a good mother, and I didn’t measure up on either.”

“Stop that. I mean it.”

“You never lacked for anything—other than a solid place, a solid group of friends—and those mattered so much to you. You hated moving, and I kept that right up after the divorce. I was so afraid of making a mistake, admitting I’d made one, that I kept making them.

“You made your own place, your own life, so—”

“Not about me,” Morgan repeated. “Not now.”

“All right.” After letting out a long breath, Audrey nodded. “All right. I stayed because I loved him, and because I wanted you to have a father. I wanted—and it took a long time for me to understand it—but I wanted both of us to have what my parents had, what I had because of what they had together.”

“They loved each other. They loved you.”

“Always. Just always. I couldn’t make that happen for me, for you, and it made me feel like a failure.”

“He failed,” Morgan corrected. “He failed us.”

“Yes. Yes, he did. I’ve been careful what I’ve said about him because I kept hoping he’d soften toward you, reach out to his only child. But he hasn’t, and he won’t.”

“He never loved me.”

Audrey’s eyes welled, but she shook her head, drank more tea.

“No, I’m so sorry. He never loved either of us. Or just stopped, I’ve never been sure. We weren’t what he wanted, or felt entitled to, I guess. I’d get so nervous when he was about to come home.”

“It showed.”

“Parents can be so blind to what their kids know. I was afraid of him—not physically,” she said quickly. “Not that. Never, ever that. But of disappointing him, which I constantly did. He didn’t really want children, but if he had one, he wanted a son. Then I disappointed him by giving him a daughter. He wanted me to get my tubes tied after you were born. I was twenty-four—barely—and wanted more children. It probably stands as the only thing I absolutely refused him. So he got a vasectomy, and that was that.”

“He’s cruel in his way.”

“No, no, not cruel, Morgan. Just always right in his mind, and rigid with it. I wanted a child, I had a child. As long as you were clean, well-fed, well-mannered, well-educated, he’d fulfilled his duty as he saw it. He didn’t want me to work outside the home, so I didn’t. You and the house, wherever it might be, they were my duties. My performance rating, on his scale, never reached above adequate.

“We weren’t suited,” she concluded. “I should’ve let go, taken you, come home. But that meant failure, so I didn’t. Then he let go. He met someone he wanted, who suited him. So he told me he’d filed for a divorce, laid out the terms. I shouldn’t have been shocked, but I was. Shouldn’t have been brokenhearted, but I was.”