Mothers and Daughters

Prying the plastic lid off of her 32oz Styrofoam cup, Allie shook a few pieces of ice from the cup into her mouth. Last week, her husband, Ben, told her that according to some study, ice that came out of soda fountain machines had high levels of bacteria on them because of a lack of employee hygiene. This, however, only derailed her ice chewing habit for a day. She was twenty eight years old and had been chewing on ice for as long as she could remember. If it hadn’t made her sick before, chances are, it wasn’t going to make her sick now. Besides, she had to chew on something since she had acrylic nails put on last week. With that being said, the ice won.

From the sunroom, Allie stared at the raindrops as they hit the pavement. She noticed how the rain stained the bricks on the outside of the house a deeper shade of red, the concrete patio a darker shade of grey. Dipping her fingers into the cup, she pulled out a few more ice cubes and popped them into her mouth. Allie could hear people milling around the house, all of them bearing casserole dishes and condolences while reminiscing about her father, Thomas. She listened to a few of them, but after about an hour or so, Allie felt the need to escape, and the sunroom was the only empty room in the house.

Allie was able to see her mother through the kitchen window as she looked out the sliding glass door. She could see how Rachel looked down at the black dress she was wearing, tugging and pulling at the fabric around her stomach. She recognized the gesture, as Rachel had done the same thing to her when she was in middle school during her chubby phase. She wasn’t sure why her mother cared about the dress. Anyone that looked at her mother wasn’t going to notice her clothes first. They would notice her face. Allie always felt like her mother resembled Grace Kelly. When she was little, Allie used to wish that someday she would be half as pretty as her mother.

“There you are.”

Allie turned her head at the sound of the voice behind her. It was her husband, Ben. “Hey,” she said. She assumed that their two daughters, four year old Olivia and seven month old Sophie would be with him, but they weren’t. “Where are the girls?”

“My parents have them,” Ben said. “What are you doing out here?”

Allie motioned towards the glass door with her cup. “Watching my mother.”

“Oh,” he said. “I asked her how she was doing earlier when I went in there to get Olivia’s cup, but she just glared at me so I left.”

Allie rolled her eyes and sighed. She was continuously amazed at how her mother was able to treat Ben with such disdain, no matter how nice Ben was to her. When she and Ben were growing up, she remembered how hard Ben would try to get Rachel to like him, but nothing ever worked. “I’m sorry,” she said, apologizing for her mother.

Ben laughed. “It’s not your fault.”

“Still…”

“Allie,” he said. Walking towards her, Allie watched him open his arms to her. As she stepped towards his embrace, she let herself relax for a moment in his arms. “I didn’t expect her to be nice to me. Especially not today.”

“Well, I figured that maybe today she’d cut you some slack,” she said.

Earlier, at the cemetery, Ben offered to help Rachel out of her chair and Allie watched in horror as her mother berated Ben right there in front of everyone. All he was trying to do was help and she scolded him like one of her students at school. Allie was mortified.

Pulling away from his embrace, Allie dug out a few more pieces of ice and tossed them into her mouth. “I don’t think she’s cried once.”

She offered Ben some ice, smiling a little as he cringed and shook his head no. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen your mother cry.”

He had a point. Now that Allie thought about it, she didn’t think that she had ever seen her mother cry either. She’d seen Rachel on the verge of tears before—like the time she looked like she thought that Allie had been robbed of the fair queen pageant title ten years back—but Allie had never seen actual tears fall from her mother’s eyes. She figured that her mother would have sobbed during the funeral at least. Allie knew that she’d be an absolute wreck if anything ever happened to Ben.

“Maybe you should go talk to her.”

Allie looked at Ben. “Are you nuts?” she asked. “Every time I’ve tried to talk to her, she looks at me like she looks at you.”

“If anyone’s going to be able to get anything through to her, it’s going to be you,” Ben said. “And you know it.”

“She’ll talk when she wants to,” Allie said. “And if that’s never, well, that’s fine with me.”

“Are you mad about the cemetery?” he asked.

“A little,” Allie said.

“She’s grieving,” Ben said.

“We’re all grieving,” Allie said. “Yet we’re all acting like civilized people. Don’t make excuses for her.”

Ben held his hands up in the air. “I was just suggesting…”

“Well, don’t,” Allie said, cutting him off. Searching in her cup for more ice, her hand found nothing but moisture along the inside walls. “Damn it,” she said.

“You’re only going to find ice in the kitchen,” Ben said. “I’m going to go back to Mom and Dad’s house and check on the girls.” Giving her a quick kiss, he squeezed her shoulders with his hands. “Just give it a try,” he said. “And if it doesn’t work, then at least you can say that you made an attempt.”

As Ben left, Allie stood in the middle of the sunroom, staring into her empty cup. She really didn’t want to talk to her mother, but she wanted more ice. Looking into the house, she could see that there were still a good number of people milling around with their punch cups and plates in hand. It’d been about two hours since the funeral. She figured they would have all gone by now. Assuming that a few raindrops on her would be well worth the sacrifice, as it got her out of talking to everyone in the house, Allie quickly opened and closed the sliding glass door and ran across the patio. Sliding the door open to the kitchen, Allie jumped inside and shut the door behind her.

“Alexandria, what on earth are you doing?” Rachel asked.

Allie looked over at her mother. “I didn’t want to walk through the house. This way was quicker.”

“You’re going to catch pneumonia doing things like that.”

“It was ten steps in the rain, Mom,” Allie said. “I’m not going to catch pneumonia.” Feeling her mother’s stare as she walked through the kitchen, Allie made her way to the new stainless steel refrigerator that her parents had installed few months back and clicked the ice dispenser over to crush. Filling up the cup up with ice, she pulled a few pieces out when she was done and tossed them into her mouth.

“Honestly, Alexandria,” Rachel said. “After all the money your father and I put into your mouth…”

Facing her mother, Allie continued to blatantly chew the ice in front of her. “I’ve got a good dental plan, Mom. You don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

“It ruins your teeth, Allie. Don’t you care?”

Allie grabbed a few more pieces and put them into her mouth. “I care about you being nice to my husband more than I care about what you think I’m doing to my teeth. By the way—you owe Ben an apology.”

“Excuse me?” Rachel asked.

“You screamed at him for no reason at the cemetery in front of everyone,” Allie said. “All he was trying to do was help.”

Rachel rolled her eyes at Allie’s accusation. “He was being patronizing.”

“You had your hip replaced three weeks ago!” she said. “It’s rained all week, everyone’s seen you limp around since you refuse to use the cane the doctor gave you, and he was just trying to help you, Mom.”

“Whatever.”

Allie could feel her nostrils flare slightly as her frustration grew. I don’t know why I even bother, she thought. Bringing the cup to her mouth, she shook a few more pieces into her mouth and sighed.

“Stop that,” Rachel said.

“Stop what?”

“That face,” Rachel said. “You look just like your father. I hated it when he made that face.”

“Well, if you’d just let someone help you…”

“I don’t need help, Alexandria!” Rachel said, cutting Allie off. “I want everyone to leave, I want you to stop chewing on the goddamn ice, and I want everyone to stop thinking that I need help because I don’t! I didn’t need help before I met your father and I certainly don’t need help now!”

Allie was silent, noticing how red her mother’s face grew from her rant. As Rachel poured herself another glass of wine, Allie continued to say nothing while watching her mother empty the glass as quickly as she poured it. She wondered how much Merlot her mother had gone through this week. Allie already found three empty bottles in the trashcan under the sink on Wednesday after they returned from the visitation.

“Would you please stop looking at me like that?” Rachel asked.

“I’m not looking at you like anything,” Allie said.

“Yes you are,” she said. “How you inherited your father’s looks is beyond me.”

Allie felt her teeth clench slightly. She hated it when her mother made jabs like that with the sole intent of reminding her that Thomas wasn’t her real father. He met her mother when Allie was just a baby, and adopted her as his own when she was two. Growing up, Allie loved it when people would tell her how much she looked like her father. It was the brown hair and the dimples that gave most people that impression. Allie remembered seeing her mother scowl once while they were on vacation in Florida at some tourists who watched as Rachel snapped a picture of Thomas and Allie, who was twelve at the time.

“They look so much alike,” the couple said.

“She’s her stepfather,” Rachel quickly said, correcting the two as soon as she snapped the picture.

Allie never forgot that day and she would always remember it when Rachel made snide comments like that. “You know, Dad and I did a lot of things together. Regardless of what you think, I was bound to pick up on a few facial expressions here and there.”

She watched her mother stare at her as she continued to chew her ice. “Seriously Alexandria,” Rachel said. “Will you stop chewing the goddamn ice?”

“No."

“It’s not good for your teeth!”

Allie slammed her cup down on the counter. “Neither is drinking a bottle of wine a day but I don’t nag you about it, do I?” She didn’t want to shout at her mother. Allie had no intentions of raising her voice but she couldn’t help herself now. “You never hear me complain about anything—the way you treat Ben, the comments you make about Dad not being my real dad, my bad habits—but it’s stopping today. Dad’s gone, Mom. He’s gone. There is no one left to play referee between us anymore and if we can’t figure out how to talk to each other then I don’t see us talking much after today.”

Rachel set her wine glass on the kitchen island she was still leaning on. Crossing her arms against her chest, Allie watched her mother stare at her. “I don’t understand why this is so important to you,” she said.

“I don’t understand how this isn’t important to you!” Allie said. “You’re my mother, and I can’t stand to be in the same room with you for more than ten minutes! Doesn’t that bother you? Don’t you want us to get along?”

Rachel sighed. “That’s the thing about mothers and daughters, Alexandria. We don’t have to get along. I’m your mother. Not your girlfriend.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Allie said. “I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked me to do—I did pageants, I was a ballerina, I played the piano—and it’s like nothing that I’ve ever done was ever good enough for you!”

“Alexandria,” Rachel said. “All you ever had to do to make me happy was come home at the end of the day.”

“Yeah, right,” Allie said.

“I don’t know what you want from me, Alexandria,” Rachel said. “Do you want me to say I’m sorry to Ben? Fine. Go get him. I’ll apologize to him right here. I’ll even let you be a witness.”
Allie let out a sarcastic laugh. “You can’t apologize if you don’t mean it, Mom. It totally defeats the purpose!”

“Well, then I don’t know what else to do,” Rachel said.

Snatching her cup from the counter, Allie tilted her head back and poured several pieces of ice into her mouth. Half of it was done just in spite of her mother’s insistence that she not do it, half of it was done out of sheer frustration. “I just want to be able to tolerate being in the same room with you,” she finally said. “I want us to get along. I want to be able to have you come visit us in Boston so you can see your granddaughters. I want you to be civil to my husband. All he’s ever wanted was for you to like him. It used to be a goal of his, but now I think he’s just nice to you because that’s the kind of person that he is. Dad liked him. Dad always liked him. What in the hell could Ben have possibly done to make you hate—”

“Alexandria!” Rachel said. “Stop!”

“What?” Allie asked. “You have answers to my questions?”

Rachel didn’t speak for a moment. Allie watched her, waiting for her to chime in at any moment, but nothing was said. Finally, after a few minutes, Allie watched as her mother regained her composure, stood up straight, and looked her dead in the eye. “You think you know a lot about me, but the truth is, you don’t.”

“All I know is that you married a man that would have moved Heaven and Earth to make you happy,” Allie said. “And half the time, you acted like you could’ve cared less. He loved us, Mom. Do you know how many times he told me about how the two of you met, and that he knew loved you the moment he saw you?” It was her favorite story growing up. Every night, when Thomas would come into her room and tuck her in, she would often ask to hear that story because to her, it sounded like a fairytale. “He adored you.”

“It’s not about being adored, Allie,” Rachel said with a sigh. “You have what I always wanted. Ben is to you what Michael was to me.”

“Oh no,” Allie said quickly. “Don’t even use Ben’s name in the same sentence as the man who left you barefoot and pregnant in a trailer. Don’t do it.”

“It’s hard to get over your first love Allie,” Rachel continued to say. “No matter how hard you try…”

“Stop it!” Allie said. “How can you think about that man on today of all days? You just buried your husband and you’re thinking about Michael?”

Rachel sighed. “You’ve been with one person your entire life, Alexandria. You have no idea what it’s like to lose a first love.”

“Even if Michael didn’t love you back?” Allie asked. She was still confused as to how her mother could possibly rationalize this. It didn’t make any sense. Her father loved her mother. Allie remembered how he used to stare at her whenever she was in the room, like she was the only one there. He always did it, no matter where they were. She wanted that when she got older. It’s what she had with Ben. “I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t,” Rachel said.

“I mean, it sounds like you’re saying that because I got my happily ever after the first time around with Ben, it justifies the way you treat Ben, the way you and I talk to each other…”

“Not to mention that you and your father always had little club of yours.”

Allie stared at her mother in shock. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Rachel said. “You two always had your club, and I was always the odd man out.”

“You made yourself the odd man out!” Allie said. “You complained about everything, you don’t have a sense of humor, and even when Dad and I invited you to do stuff with us, you would say no every time! If anyone excluded anyone, you did it to yourself!”

“You know what,” Rachel said, her voice turning hard again. “I don’t have to deal with this today.”

Allie glared at her mother. “You saying that implies that you’ve dealt with it before.”

“This conversation is done.”

“No, Mom,” Allie said. “It’s only the beginning.”

Allie watched Rachel, as she began to pace back and forth in the kitchen. She knew her mother only paced when she was frustrated, even though she looked like she was in pain because of the weather. Each step Rachel took, Allie noticed a slight limp. “You know,” Rachel said, facing Allie. “I don’t have to justify anything I do to you. I’m the mother. You’re the daughter. If you don’t like how that works, then that’s something that you’re just going to have to deal with.”

Pursing her lips together, Allie blinked her eyes rapidly. She wouldn’t cry in front of her mother. She refused. “Maybe…maybe you were right,” she said softly.

“Excuse me?” Rachel asked.

“Maybe this conversation is done.”

Refusing to let her mother get the final word, Allie grabbed her cup and left the kitchen. Pushing through the white swinging door, she ignored the people that tried to talk to her as she passed. All she wanted to do was to get out of this house. Opening the door, Allie slammed it shut behind her. It wasn’t raining anymore, she noticed, but the skies were still grey. Jogging down the steps, she tossed out the rest of the ice into the yard and walked down the sidewalk. Around the corner and three houses down, Allie saw Ben, sitting on the front porch swing of his parents’ house. As she stopped short of the front steps, she stared at Ben as her eyes welled up with tears.

“Allie?” he asked. Standing up from the swing, he walked down the front porch steps and wrapped her up in a hug. “Allie, what’s wrong?”

She couldn’t say anything. All Allie could do was cry. The more she thought about the conversation with her mother, the harder she cried. Maybe someday she would understand her mother, understand why she would say what she said, why she would do what she did, but for now, all Allie could do was cry.

So she did.