Chapter 3
The caterer called me just after eight the next morning.
The owner sounded puzzled when I explained why I was calling. Vanessa had requested an estimate three days earlier, she said, but never booked the dinner. There had been no cancellation.
I thanked her and ended the call.
Vanessa was downstairs making coffee. She looked up when I entered.
“I was going to tell you,” she said.
“You told Mom the caterer canceled.”
“Yes.”
“There was no booking.”
Her hand stopped on the mug. “I know.”
I sat across from her. “Tell me what you asked her to do.”
“I called her yesterday afternoon. I said I’d made a mess of the plans. She said she could put dinner together.”
“What about the dishes?”
“She offered to do those as well.”
“She asked you twice to let her sit down,” I said. My mother had told me on the drive that she’d tried to join the table after dessert. Vanessa had pointed her back toward the kitchen because the pots were still dirty. “Did you think she meant only until the plates were cleared?”
Vanessa set down the mug.
“I didn’t know she was that tired.”
“You saw her.”
“I saw her working. Your mother never complains.”
I leaned forward. “She shouldn’t have had to complain.”
Vanessa looked away. “You’re right.”
It was the first plain answer she had given me.
I wanted to believe it was enough to start fixing something. Then I remembered my mother eating alone in the kitchen.
I called her after breakfast. She answered on the second ring.
“Are you coming to church tomorrow?” she asked.
“I’ll come by today, if that’s all right.”
“Of course.”
“Vanessa wants to apologize.”
There was a pause. “I’m willing to hear her. I’m not ready today.”
I told Vanessa that. She nodded and didn’t argue, though she looked hurt.
At my mother’s apartment, I found her at the kitchen table peeling an orange. A heating pad rested over her right wrist.
I sat beside her. “Does it hurt?”
“It will settle.”
“Let me take you to the doctor.”
“Marcus, it’s sore, not broken.”
“Then I can drive you to have it checked.”
She put down the orange. “I need you to listen to something first.”
She told me that two months earlier, Vanessa had asked her to come over and help prepare a birthday lunch for a neighbor. Three weeks after that, she had helped clean before Vanessa’s book club arrived.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Vanessa said she’d asked you to handle too much already. I thought this was between us.”
“Were you paid?”
“Goodness, no.”
I had to stand and walk to the window. My mother didn’t need my anger filling her apartment, but I could feel it rising.
“Did she introduce you at those lunches?”
“At the birthday lunch, yes. At book club, she asked me to stay in the kitchen. She said her friends wouldn’t want to disturb me.”
My mother looked down at her orange. “I believed her the first time.”
“I’m sorry I missed it.”
“You saw me at Sunday dinners,” she said. “She was kind to me then.”
I thought of those Sundays. Vanessa served coffee, asked about my mother’s garden, and sent her home with leftovers. I had trusted what I saw.
My mother touched the heating pad. “I helped because I loved her, too. I don’t know when she stopped seeing me as family.”
We went to a clinic that afternoon. The doctor said my mother had strained her wrist and should rest it for several days. I bought her lunch afterward, though she protested that her refrigerator was full.
At the restaurant, she picked at her soup.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Anything.”
“Are you going to leave Vanessa?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t want you making a promise for my sake that you’ll regret.”
“I’m trying to understand what she’s been doing.”
“That’s what I want, too.”
Back home, I found Vanessa at the kitchen sink. The remaining dishes were washed and put away. She was wiping a mark from the counter where my mother’s casserole dish had stood.
“Mom strained her wrist,” I said.
Vanessa set down the cloth. “Is she all right?”
“She needs to rest.”
“I’m sorry.”
I told her about the birthday lunch and book club. She didn’t deny either.
“I thought she liked being useful,” Vanessa said.
“Did you ask?”
“No.”
“Why keep it from me?”
“She said she didn’t want to bother you.”
I shook my head. “She said that after you told her I was overwhelmed.”
Vanessa gripped the edge of the counter. “I felt like everyone expected me to host things perfectly. Your mother was good at it. I kept asking.”
“You kept hiding it.”
“Yes.”
She sat down, her eyes wet. “I’m ashamed of myself, Marcus.”
I believed she felt ashamed now. I didn’t yet know what she would do with it.
That evening Claire called. She wanted to know if my mother was all right. I told her about the wrist, and she grew quiet.
“I’m going to apologize to her,” she said. “May I have her number?”
“I’ll ask Mom first.”
“Of course.” Claire hesitated. “Marcus, there’s something else. I took a few pictures at dinner. Vanessa asked me to send them for a post she was making.”
I frowned. “What post?”
“I don’t know if she put it up. I saw the draft on her phone when she was showing Maya. It was about hosting dinner on your own.”
After we hung up, I found Vanessa in the living room.
May you like
“Were you going to post pictures from last night?”
She stared at me. Then she reached for her phone.
