Spoiler Alert (Spoiler Alert #1)(86)

April could hardly forget, given the frequency of her mother’s reminders.

“I could come and help you recover afterward, if you wanted.” When her daughter didn’t respond, JoAnn tried a different tack. “But I know that’s a big step. If you’re not ready, maybe you could try his diet and exercise routine instead. It could be something you have in common, like it is for your father and me.”

Growing up, April had wondered what kept her parents together. JoAnn, fluttery and well-intentioned and cheerful. Brent, confident and self-absorbed and dickish. Married almost forty years now, yet still strangers in a very real way. A couple that never seemed more distant than when they stood beside one another.

Well, now she knew: burpees and lean protein had saved their marriage.

It would be kind of hilarious, if only her mother didn’t always look so afraid every morning when she stepped on the scale, and every evening when she stepped on the scale, and all those other times during the day she stepped on the scale too.

After leaving for college, it had taken April three years to stop weighing herself after every meal. Another decade to throw away the scale entirely.

Her mother was twisting lemon slices to garnish each plate, which meant lunch was almost ready. They were running out of time, and April was running out of courage.

She couldn’t wait until after the meal, as she’d planned.

They were doing this now.

“Mom.” She placed a hand over her mother’s, stilling those skilled, perfect movements. “I need to talk to you for a minute. In private.”

JoAnn’s forehead crinkled. “We’re about to eat, sweetheart. Can’t this wait?”

“I don’t think so,” April said, and nudged her mother toward the privacy of the guest room.

JoAnn’s birthday lunch wasn’t the right place for this, but it was a conversation that needed to occur face-to-face, and April wasn’t sure when she’d return to her childhood home. She wasn’t sure if she’d return. It all depended on what happened next.

After living with a man like Brent for decades, her mother was exquisitely sensitive to the potential displeasure of loved ones. She was already twisting her hands anxiously, already half-ready to cry, which was part of the reason they’d never had this conversation before. Reducing Mom to this state made April feel like a monster. It made her feel like her father.

“What . . .” Her mother started at the click of the door, even though April had closed it behind them as quietly as possible. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

Okay. She didn’t need Marcus.

In the end, she was always going to have to do it on her own, anyway.

“After today, I don’t want to see Dad again. Ever.” Any minute, Brent would wonder why his wife wasn’t serving him with sufficient speed, and this conversation would end. April didn’t have time to prevaricate. “Being around him brings me nothing but anxiety, and I’m not subjecting myself to that anymore.”

Her mother gulped at that first, firm statement, eyes going glassy and terrified.

For years, she’d lamented the estrangement between father and daughter, coaxing April in phone calls to visit for his birthday and send him Christmas gifts before whispering, her tone meaningful, that he’d asked how she was doing.

April didn’t believe it. And even if he had, was that—a passing thought as to her general welfare—really enough to indicate his grief at her distance and his desire for greater closeness?

Was that really enough to make him an actual father?

No. No, it wasn’t.

Now April was declaring her independence, cutting him out of her life entirely, and all her mother’s worst fears were coming true, and it was horrible, horrible, to be the person to inflict that necessary blow.

“Sweetheart—” Her lips trembling, JoAnn reached toward April. When her daughter continued speaking, though, she dropped her hand and fell silent.

“From now on, our relationship won’t include him.” Her mother would exploit any seeming uncertainty, so April didn’t offer any. “If you can’t visit me without him, I’ll understand. But I won’t see you either, then.”

Late last night, April had formulated different versions of this conversation.

He doesn’t love me, she’d tell her mother. Maybe I still love him a little, only because it’s hard not to love your father. I definitely don’t like him, though. I’m done.

But that would have invited her mother to insist of course Dad loved her, men just showed it differently, and April simply needed to understand. Accept. Deny her anxiety, deny what she needed, even though her chest felt wrung dry, emptied, at the prospect of seeing a man who was supposed to love her no matter what, but didn’t.

He didn’t.

Her mother did. Which only made the rest of this conversation worse.

“How our relationship will look after today is up to you.” Acid was climbing April’s throat. Bile. “Not just because I won’t see you when he’s present, but because things need to change between us. Even without his involvement.”

JoAnn was openly crying now, her knees collapsing beneath her as she sank onto the edge of the bed, her spine bent as she huddled in on herself, and at one time, April would have cut out her own heart to prevent her mother from looking like this.