Kaira Rouda - Favourite Daughter

“We broke up a couple weeks ago. I meant to tell you.” Her eyes focus on a stain on her bedspread. She picks at it with her fingernail.

“What? Really? Oh, I’m sorry, honey.” I blink and stare at Betsy. She seems unfazed.

“It’s not a big deal. I still love him, as a friend. We’ve always been more friends than anything.” She finally stops picking at the bedspread and smiles at me. “The passion was gone. You know the feeling?”

I don’t want to know, no. I swallow. “I always thought you could do better anyway.” Josh seemed perpetually barefoot, smelled vaguely of weed and needed a bath. Even when he was wearing tennis clothes he seemed, well, dingy. I care about Betsy, and who she dates. It’s a reflection on me, everything she does, everything she will do. “So is there anybody new I should know about?”

She meets my eyes. “No.”

“Well, that’s good. You should focus on your studies. Spend time with me. And Dad. You’ll be graduating so soon.”

“Thank God. And I know what you think, Mom.” She’s staring at the ceiling. Telling herself to be patient with me, perhaps? Her frustration zings through the air, hits me in the gut. Nothing I haven’t handled before.

She should watch herself tonight. I’ve already been so disappointed by her dad this evening.

“I love you.” I walk to her bedside, touch her soft, shoulder-length blond hair with my hand. I lean forward and kiss her cheek and try not to react to the diamond stud sparkling from the side of her nose. I can’t remember if we shopped for a dress for graduation. Did we?

“What are you wearing for graduation?” The look on her face tells me that I should know the answer. One of the aftereffects of strong emotion is memory loss. My memory also is hazy because of the free-flowing pharmaceuticals prescribed by Dr. Rosenthal. But I stopped most of those. I need to focus. Even without the drugs, I can’t seem to hold on to things like before.

“The purple Free People dress. Remember?” Betsy shakes her head.

I don’t remember. “Of course. Now I remember. You’ll be beautiful.”

Betsy smiles, and it’s hollow. I don’t think she believes me, but maybe she just doesn’t care. “I’m wearing the silver one to the ceremony tomorrow.” She looks down at her hands, her fingernails bitten to the quick, another result of the tragic accident we’ll commemorate tomorrow. She curls her hands into fists, hiding the carnage of her fingernails. “Are you sure it was a good idea to invite the whole world to this funeral celebration thing?”

“I’m not sure. Your dad handled it all.”

“Woo-hoo! Come grab a drink. My sister’s dead.” Betsy hops off her bed, takes a step toward her bathroom and stops. Her hands are in fists but her blue eyes have a glassy sheen, as if she’s about to cry. She crosses her arms in front of her chest.

“Oh, honey, you know it’s to remember her, not to celebrate her death. Your dad always likes to go over the top where Mary’s concerned. He always spoiled her. She was his favorite. They had all those secrets. Those inside jokes. That’s why it’s you and me against the world.” I smile at my pot stirring. I dropped some of my best refrains there.

“Mom.” She shakes her head no, but she knows I’m right. “Time for you to go.”

I reach out to her, pull her into a hug. She’s stiff, but she doesn’t push away. I’m glad she trusts me, at least a little. We stand for a moment, locked in a comforting embrace. She’s a good girl at heart.

She breaks the hug, but I slip my hand around her wrist. Holding her tight. Just a little reminder of who is boss. Then I notice a new tattoo on the inside of her left wrist, her Mary tattoo is on her right. I smile and grab her left hand, holding it in the air.

“What’s that? On your wrist?” My tone is too sharp. I force a smile.

Betsy shakes free, steps back from me, recovering her composure, pulling her sleeve down, covering her hand. “It’s an infinity symbol. You know, eternity, empowerment, everlasting love.”

“You didn’t have my permission to mark yourself again.” This is totally unacceptable. The next thing you know, she’ll be covered in those awful things.

“It’s tiny. I’ve had it for months and you didn’t even know. So chillax.” She stares into my eyes until I look away.

Defiant daughters are the worst. “You’ll be sorry, later. When you’re old and saggy.”

She arches her eyebrows. I know she’s thinking about adding, “Like you, Mom.” But I’m neither. So she smiles instead and says, “FYI, I’m meeting some friends after the lame ceremony tomorrow night. We’re planning a few surprises for senior day, and graduation night. I’ll be home late.” Betsy arches an eyebrow. “No need to stalk me.” A challenge.

I meet her eyes and she laughs. She’s teasing me, of course, not laughing at me. She’s eighteen years old. I can’t stop her from doing what she wants and I have other people to stalk right now. “Just be smart.”

“I am smart, Mom, even if you don’t think so.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. I love you.” I’m a master at dodging her, you see. I try hard not to compare her to Mary, but it’s not easy. Mary was brilliant. Beautiful. Oh well. I walk out of the room in silence, pull her door closed behind me and make my way to the stairs. My heart thumps from the tension between us, a tension that only develops when two people love each other deeply. There’s no deeper bond than a mother and a daughter. Betsy knows that, too. She’s just having a little phase.

Upstairs in the kitchen, I pull the bottle of chardonnay back out from its hiding spot behind the orange juice and vanilla almond milk and pour a full glass. I’ve limited myself to one glass a night lately, but tonight is a celebration. I’m proud of my self-control. My liver thanks me, too. Right after Mary died—well, for months after—it was a different story. But now we try to move on.

Some of us have.

In the living room I twist the knob and the fireplace bursts to life. I sit on one of the two overstuffed cream couches that face each other framing the fire. I never dreamed I would live anywhere like The Cove, let alone in a multimillion-dollar, beach-chic soft contemporary. But as I look around, that is where I am. It’s too bad my mom couldn’t see me now, surrounded by all the luxury money can buy. And soon, we’ll move to an even grander home, 1972 Port Chelsea Place. A happy address. I wonder if there’s an ocean view from the second floor of the new house?

I take a big gulp and finish my wine as I stare at the flames leaping in the fireplace. It was a warm day in May, more than a year ago now, when David and I were driving to Los Angeles to help Mary pack up her dorm room, a task I was dreading. I mean, a kid’s dorm room after a full year of college is about the least sanitary place on earth. But there we were, David and I, on a mission together.

“I have a great idea.” I had tapped David’s arm, as if I’d just come up with the idea. I wanted to understand why he had broken his promise to me and allowed Mary to connect with her birth mother. I thought tequila and sex could help me extract an answer. “Let’s go to Cabo for the weekend! Reconnect.”

“You think that’s what we need? To reconnect?” David answered, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, focused on the 405 North.

“I do.” My voice was warm, happy. Inviting. I missed him, us. I missed our family, how it had been. I wanted everyone to be close again. And it started with David.

“And why, exactly, would we go to Cabo now when Mary’s coming home from college today?” He turned up the radio. End of discussion. Tears filled my eyes and I blinked them away. But the betrayal, the hurt? You don’t just blink that away. Those feelings sit at the bottom of your heart, festering.