Too Good to Be True(48)

“Sit, girls. Margaret. What’s this about you leaving Stuart, for heaven’s sake?”

I sighed. Mom wasn’t here to see me. I was her trouble-free daughter. Growing up, Margaret had been (and proudly still was) the drama queen, full of adolescent rebellion, collegiate certainty, academic excellence and a gift for confrontation. Natalie, of course, was the golden one from the moment of her birth and since her brush with death, her every feat had been viewed as miraculous.

So far, the only exceptional thing that had happened to me was my breakup with Andrew. Sure, my parents loved me, though they viewed becoming a teacher as a bit of an easy route. (“Those who can, do,” Dad had said when I announced I’d forgo law school and get a master’s in American History with the hope of becoming a teacher.

“And those who can’t, teach.”) My summers off were treated as an affront to those who “really worked.” The fact that I slaved endlessly during the school year—tutoring and correcting and designing lesson plans, staying well past school hours to meet with students in my office, coaching the debate team, going to school events, chaperoning dances and field trips, boning up on new developments in teaching and handling the sensitive parents, all of whom expected their children to excel in every way—was viewed as irrelevant when compared with all of my delicious vacation time.

Mom sat back in her chair and eyed her eldest child. “So? Spit it out, Margaret!”

“I haven’t left him completely,” Margaret said, taking a huge bite of pastry. “I’m just…lurking here.”

“Well, it’s ridiculous,” Mom huffed. “Your father and I certainly have our problems. You don’t see me running off to Aunt Mavis’s house, do you?”

“That’s because Aunt Mavis is such a pain in the ass,” Margaret countered. “Grace is barely even half of the pain that Mavis is, right, Gracie?”

“Oh, thanks, Margs. And let me say what a privilege it was to see your dirty clothes scattered all over my guest room this morning. Shall I do your laundry for you, Majesty?”

“Well, since you don’t have a real job, sure,” she said.

“Real job? It’s better than getting a bunch of drug dealers—”

“Girls, enough. Are you really leaving Stuart?” Mom asked.

Margaret closed her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said.

“Well, I think that’s ridiculous. You married him, Margaret. You don’t just leave. You stay and work things out till you’re happy again.”

“Like you and Dad?” Margaret suggested. “Kill me now, then. Grace, would you do the honors?”

“Your father and I are perfectly…” Her voice trailed off, and she studied her coffee cup as if a light was abruptly dawning.

“Maybe you should move in with Grace, too,” Margaret suggested, raising an eyebrow.

“Okay, very funny. No. You can’t, Mom.” I shot Margs a threatening look. “Seriously, Mom,” I said slowly. “You and Dad love each other, right? You just like to bicker.”

“Oh, Grace,” she sighed. “What’s love got to do with it?”

“Thank you, Tina Turner,” Margaret quipped.

“I’m hoping love has a lot to do with it,” I protested.

Mom sighed. “Who knows what love is?” She waved her hand dismissively.

“Love is a battlefield,” Margaret murmured.

“All you need is love,” I countered.

“Love stinks,” she returned.

“Shut up, Margs,” I said. “Mom? You were saying?”

She sighed. “You get so used to someone…I don’t know. Some days, I want to kill your father with a dull knife.

He’s a boring old tax attorney, for heaven’s sake. His idea of fun is to lay down and play dead at one of those stupid Civil War battles.”

“Hey. I love those stupid battles,” I interjected, but she ignored me.

“But I don’t just walk away, either, Margaret. We did, after all, vow to love and cherish each other, even if it kills us.

”

“Gosh. That’s beautiful,” Margaret said.

“But my word, he gets on my nerves, making fun of my art! What does he do? Runs around in dress-up clothes, firing guns. I create. I celebrate the female form. I am capable of expressing myself by more than grunts and sarcasm. I—”

“More coffee, Mom?” Margs asked.

“No. I have to go.” Still, she remained in her chair.

“Mom,” I asked cautiously, “why do you, uh, celebrate the female form, as you put it? How did that get started?”

Margaret gave me a dark look, but I was a little curious. I was in graduate school when Mom discovered herself, as it were.

She smiled. “The truth is, it was an accident. I was trying to make one of those little glass balls that hang in the window or on a Christmas tree, you know? And I was having trouble tying off the end, and your father came in and said it looked like a nipple. So I told him it was, and he turned absolutely purple and I thought, why not? If your father had that kind of a reaction to it, what would someone else think? So I took it down to Chimera, and they loved it.”

“Mmm,” I murmured. “What’s not to love?”