RECLAIM MY HEART(60)

Tyne watched her mother storm across the lawn. “I’ll be right back,” she muttered over her shoulder.
Her father came out of the house just as her mother entered. He paused to talk to his wife, but Patricia swept by him, disappearing inside.
“What happened?” he asked Tyne, just feet from the back door.
“I’ll fix this, Dad,” was all she said.
She followed her mother into the house.
The mudroom looked like something from the pages of Martha Stewart Magazine. Wainscotinge. id.< covered the bottom half of the walls and was painted a pristine white. The small, square window Tyne remembered in her youth had been replaced with a larger, bay window that let in loads of light. The gleaming washer and dryer were surrounded by white cabinets sporting shiny, porcelain knobs. Even the flooring was different, wide oak planks having replaced the old linoleum she remembered.
In the next room, she could hear her mother rummaging in the freezer, several chunks of ice thumping into the bucket that hadn’t really needed filling.
Stepping over the threshold into the kitchen, Tyne said, “Mom, I’m sorry.”
Her mother’s anger was spent. Now her shoulders were rounded and the muscles in her face had gone slack.
Patricia closed the freezer door. “I can’t tell you how often I’ve dreamed about this day. About you coming home. About meeting my grandson.” She ran the tip of her tongue over her top lip and inhaled deeply. “When your father came home and told me he’d seen you, and that you were coming to dinner, I thought I’d have a coronary. My heart was racing to beat the band. I wanted everything to be perfect. Just like I’d dreamed.”
She set the ice bucket on the counter. “But I realized…?just now…?that it could never be perfect. Because, well, because, although I’ve always seen you as perfect in every way, as being amazingly talented and so intelligent you were bound to succeed at whatever you chose to do—” she lifted her hand to her throat, her gaze drifting “—you’ve only seen me as…?as…” She struggled for a moment, then shrugged. “Something ugly. Something stupid. And flawed.”
Tyne chuckled in an attempt to lighten the mood. “Mom, I’m far from perfect. And when I left here the last time, perfect wasn’t at all how you’d have described me, I’m sure.” But her mother didn’t react.
Patricia went to the cabinet over the dishwasher and opened the door. Then she shut it and turned around. “No matter what we did for you, it was never quite good enough.”
“Oh, now, Mom, that’s not true. I—”
“We were not quite good enough. We were an embarrassment to you.”
Tyne went quiet, unable to dispute her mother’s statement. Parents who shot off racist remarks like an unpredictable, misfiring automatic weapon mortified their teenaged children.
“Your father has a wonderful reputation in this town,” Patricia said. “He’s well respected. And I have more friends than I can count. The people in Oak Mills like us, Tyne.” She frowned. “Do you know how it hurts to know your own daughter doesn’t?”
“I love you, Mom.” Tyne took a step forward and then stopped. “I might have been angry for a while.”
“A long while,” her mother pointed out.
And she was forced to agree with a small nod. “But I do love you.”
“And we love you.” Patricia reached up and tugged at a short lock of her hair. “We love you so much. Everything we ever did, or said, or planned, was because we love you, Tyne.”
Without being told, Tyne knew her mother was trying to explain their actions of the past.
“You have a son,” Patricia continued, “a teenaged son. Surely, now that you’re a parent you can understand our feelings. Our motives. We only meant to do what was best for you. You might not have been able to appreciate that then, but you have to be able to now.”
There must have been a thousand things she’d done over the years that were in Zach’s best interest; early bed times, the teeth brushing routine, controlling what he watched on TV. The list was endless. And as he’d gotten older, the parental choices had gotten harder because her son had discovered his voice. Despite his complaining, his anger, his comangThe liplete displeasure, Tyne continued to do what she thought was best for her son. Keeping him from going swimming with his friends last week was a prime example.
She found herself nodding slowly at her mother. “I do understand,” she admitted.
The frown creasing her mother’s forehead smoothed a bit. “Now if I can just get you to see that I didn’t mean anything bad before. When I mentioned Mr. Martin’s Mexicans.” She closed her eyes and frowned, her chin jutting forward. “Hispanics. Because I didn’t, you know.”
Tyne sighed. Keeping her words as gentle as possible, she said, “Mom, do you hear yourself? You talk as if Mr. Martin owns his employees.”
Patricia gasped. “I did no such thing.”
“Come on, Mom. ‘Mr. Martin’s Hispanics.’ Don’t you hear the inference?”
“No, I don’t,” Patricia countered. “They’re his crew.”
“Why is it necessary to mention their nationality at all?” she asked civilly.
Once again, her mother’s hands lifted in exasperation. “Because that’s what they are. Tyne, you don’t understand. I am sure that they are very proud of who and what they are. I’m sure they have no problem with me calling them Mr. Martin’s Hispanics. I complimented their work, didn’t I?”