“Annoyed me? I was expecting to find something terrible.”
“You frightened me for nothing!”
“And that’s exactly the problem. We offered to take you home. You stayed because you thought you needed to see what I’d become involved in.”
She folded her arms.
“You were ready to believe the worst about them before we left your street. What did you expect to find?”
“And that’s exactly the problem.”
Mara unscrewed her water bottle.
“The naked dancing under the full moon is strictly for special occasions.”
Mom turned sharply.
“I never said you do that.”
Lenald looked at her.
“Then what did you think?”
“The naked dancing is strictly for special occasions.”
She opened her mouth.
Her eyes moved from his face to Mara’s, then back to me.
Nobody supplied an answer for her.
Finally, she looked away.
“Helping here doesn’t mean I have to approve of everything.”
She looked away.
“You don’t,” I said. “You can dislike his clothes. You cannot cut up my words to turn my husband against me.”
“I wanted him to understand what marriage would require.”
“According to what YOU wanted, not me.”
“I was worried about your future.”
“According to what YOU wanted.”
“You tried to make him leave me at our wedding.”
She pressed her lips together.
I felt Lenald beside me, but he let me finish.
“He spent part of our wedding wondering whether I secretly wanted to change him. You did that. Not his friends. Not his music. You.”
“You tried to make him leave me.”
“I’m your mother.”
“Then please stop hurting the person I chose to marry.”
Her eyes shifted to Lenald.
“I suppose you’ll want an apology.”
“I’d like you to hear what Melany is saying,” he answered.
“I’m your mother.”
I took his hand.
“For now, you don’t contact Lenald privately. Anything about our marriage gets said to both of us.”
Mom stared at our joined hands.
“You’re putting rules on when I can speak to my own family?”
“Yes. And if you try to divide us again, the calls and visits stop.”
I took his hand.
“Melany.”
My throat tightened. I waited for her to say she understood, or even that she’d been wrong about the recording.
“I mean it, Mom. I want you in my life. You don’t get to decide whether he stays in it.”
She looked at Lenald. He stayed beside me.
“I mean it, Mom.”
“Then I’ll call you,” she said finally.
“And if it’s about us, we both hear it.”
She gave a stiff nod.
It wasn’t an apology. But she’d heard the terms, and I wasn’t taking them back.
Inside, Mom picked up the napkin Felix had offered her. We finished the shift and drove her home.
She’d heard the terms.
At her gate, she thanked Lenald for the ride, using his name.
I told her we’d call the following weekend.
After she went inside, I reached for Lenald’s jacket on the back seat and found three chocolate bars in a pocket.
I held them up.
I told her we’d call.
“Three emergencies?”
He shrugged.
“We brought your mother, after all.”
I laughed, and he unwrapped one for us to share.
“Three emergencies?”
