I don’t mean to pry, but it looks like you could use some help. Is everything okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” I replied, swiping at my eyes. “It’s just a bad day. Thank you for checking on me.”
“Sometimes bad days can be everything we need, stuffed into an uncomfortable package. Just remember that when you feel like things can’t get worse.” The man offered me a warm smile, then clicked his tongue at his dog. “Come on, Monty. Let’s give the sweet lady some space and get that blood flowing.”
Off they went, his flipflops flipping and flopping while the retriever’s nails clicked across the pavement. Outside my car, a gorgeous Florida day shimmered and shone and for some reason, that brought me enough peace to decide where I wanted to go—home.
Not home to an empty apartment or back to Nan’s.
To the one person who truly knew what to say to make bad days feel better.
Not Joe, whispered my breaking heart, reminding me I’d thought the same thing about him just an hour before. Not anymore.
The potted flowers on Mom’s porch bobbed their hello as I knocked on her door and a fresh set of tears choked their way up my throat. I was an absolute mess, and the look on her face as she appeared in the doorway only proved how bad it was.
“Good God, Kiki. What’s wrong?” She ushered me inside and I buried myself in her arms, letting tears, snot, and sorrow soak into her shirt.
“It’s finally happened,” I said, sniffling and hiccupping as I pulled away in search of a tissue.
Mom trailed after me, patting my back, my shoulder, my arm, the way she always did—as if she could tap the pain right out of me with the power of her love. “What’s finally happened?”
I sank onto the couch that had been the sight of countless Netflix marathons and Chinese takeout. “The family curse.” I dropped my head in my hands. “It struck me so hard I don’t know how I’ll recover.”
“What in the world are you talking about?” Mom perched beside me, eyeing me like I might be in the process of losing my mind. “What curse, Kennedy?”
I explained all the things Joe said. The anger in his eyes when he finally looked at me. The cruel words shot from his lips, striking my heart like poisoned arrows.
A person could grow old and die waiting for you to think about someone other than yourself.
When we first met, I pegged you as someone who used people to get what they wanted. I don’t know why I’m surprised to discover I was right.
Then what, pray tell, is happening now, other than you proving to be the bitch I thought you were when we first met?
The fury distorting his face. The heat in his voice.
“He was so mean, Mom. So mean.”
“I’m still not sure I understand.”
“What’s not to understand? I finally fell in love with someone and he turned into a giant dick.”
“I get that part.” Taking my hands, Mom did everything she could to meet my eyes. “But what in the world does any of this have to do with a family curse?”
With a loud sniffle, I yanked another tissue from the box and dabbed at my eyes. “I quit my job today. I literally pulled into the driveway and ran to Joe for comfort and he was just awful. It’s so much like you and Dad I don’t even know what to do with myself. He barreled into your life and ruined it. Leaving you with me while he got to keep his job like nothing had changed. You, on the other hand, had to live off his checks and some freelancing. To stop traveling. To just…be a mom.”
A lifetime of guilt threatened to drown me as I met her eyes. My arrival had signified the end of her dreams. Her goals. Of everything she’d worked for. I’d clipped her wings while Dad still soared. And her mom? Grandma Rosey? Almost the same thing happened to her.
“Are you pregnant, Kennedy?”
“What?” I recoiled. “No…That’s the one thing that’s different for me.”
Mom leaned close and cupped my cheek. “There is no family curse, Kiki. Your dad didn’t come barreling into my life and ruin it. He didn’t abandon us, either. He was terrible at being domestic. I, on the other hand, loved every minute of it. I told him to go back to work and then left my job willingly because raising you was the best thing I’d ever done.”
Her words