My mother sends her car to the train station for us, complete with a car seat for Amelia. It's uncomfortable getting into a town car at a subway station, but not using it would cause more problems than it would fix, so we slide into the back seat and buckle Amelia into the car seat Mother was kind enough to include for us.
Then, we wait at every stop light between the station and our parents house. I literally could have walked there faster.
Finally, the car rolls to a stop in front of my parents house, small white Christmas lights flooding the newly redone garden. Once upon a time, it used to be a yard, but I have to admit I prefer it as a garden. It's more welcoming with the rose bushes and the path, even under the light dusting of snow.
Which is good, because the imposing brick mansion is entirely unwelcoming, even for those of us who grew up here.
In the dim light of the moon, the three story building looms over us, casting a shadow twice its size onto the ground at our feet. The shrubs lining the edge of the garden join with the barren fruit trees in casting menacing shadows onto the ground like a horrible puppet theater. A cool wind bites at my cheeks.
"Maybe we should get inside," Gerard says, pulling his jacket tighter around his neck. "I didn't bring enough winter clothes."
"I have to think about it," I said from the bottom of the porch steps. "Benjamin's car isn't parked in the driveway or on the street. Which means we are exceptionally early for supper."
"Good point."
The stairs groan under our feet as we climb onto the porch and stare at the large brass knocker in the center of the cumbersome mahogany door.
We never used the door when we were kids, always running around the back to what probably used to be a servant's entrance but now serves as a mud room. Gerard and I are now both adults and allowed -- no, encouraged -- to use the front entrance, but we stand there, staring at the door as the wind whips small flakes of snow onto our cheeks and ears.
If it weren't for Elodie coming up the path behind us and pressing the doorbell, we might have stood there until Benjamin arrived. Maybe longer.
"Honestly, you two. I already have a kid. I don't need two more." Elodie adjusts Amelia's little toque on her sleepy head and uses her own scarf to shield her daughter from the wind.
"You knew about us when you had her." Gerard points at Amelia.
Elodie's quippy reply never comes because mother's maid opens the door. "Mrs. Kendrick will be right with you. May I take your coats?" Judy asks, holding out her hands for our bags and coats.
Leave it to our mother to expect such formality from her staff toward her own children. Maybe we should have used the back entrance.
Gerard doesn't seem to notice the expectation. "Thanks, Judy. We'll hang them up."
Judy bites in her bottom lip and wrings her hands together, shifting her weight from foot to foot and swirling her head around to check her surroundings.
"You may take our coats, Judy," I answer for all of us and hand her my coat, stuffed with my toque and mittens. She quickly slides the coats over her arm and moves into the hallway and out of sight.
We wind our way through the long hallway into the dining room where a large table greets us. It is set for dinner, but Mother is nowhere in sight. The whole house seems to be missing her usual barrage of orders.
"Maybe the study?" Gerard suggests. I shrug and follow Elodie out of the room toward the study. Slowly, we make our way through the rooms of the main floor until we finally find her in the lounge.
I cross the floor to give her a kiss on each cheek. "Mom, you know your house is only ten minutes from the station, right? We really didn't need the car."
"Well, good evening to you too, Julie. You know very well I can't have you all wandering around in the darkness with a baby." She kisses both of Elodie's cheeks and then picks Amelia up out of her arms. "And how are you today?" she coos.
Gerard makes a bee line for the drink cart in the corner and pulls out a glass for each of us. When he's finished, he hands me my glass of ginger ale with three cubes of ice like I like it. "You trying to curse Amelia or something?"
It's only then that I realize I've been staring at my mother and Amelia. "No. Just wishing she would distract Mom from whatever it is she's planning."
The deep timber of my father's voice enters the room before he does. "He's already invited, Jules. Nothing to be done." My dad stands in the doorway dressed in proper dinner attire. It really is too bad he had us for children. His style is completely lost on us.
"Why is he invited, dearest father?" I am overly formal so he knows I'm joking. I bounce across the wood floors in my socks and kiss him on the cheek. "How is work?"
"Work is work. You know how it is balancing your mother's expectations with the real estate market in this town."
"I do," I laugh. "Whose rent did you cut this time?"
"I'll tell you more later. She had a good story."
"Julie!" my mother calls from across the room, Amelia somehow nowhere to be found.
"Yes, mother?"
"Come upstairs with me. We must do something with your hair."
"I don't want to. My hair is just fine."
"But Benjamin will be here in less than half an hour. More like fifteen minutes if I know him at all and I need you looking proper before our guest arrives."
"What about everyone else?" I try to protest.
"Everyone else is not a potential match for the man. But I do expect they will clean themselves up." She pauses to shoot her laser glare around the room at each of my siblings in turn. Well, the ones who were there for dinner.
"I don't want to--"
"No arguing, Julie. I insist."
"You should go, Jules. Your mother means well."
"I know she means well, Dad. But it doesn't end well. Surely she's noticed that by now."
"Ever the optimist, your mother. One of the things I love most about her."
I groan as the air escapes my lungs. "Fine. Coming mother." I plaster a smile onto my face and point to it so Dad can see I've made an attempt.
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When we get upstairs, she busies herself fixing my shirt and adorning my ears with jewellery and twisting the front of my hair into a headband that looks like it's straight from the nineteenth-century. Which, coincidentally, is where she gets all of her manners and rules.
"Do we have to do the hair headband, Mom?" I'm whining and I know it, but I can't help myself. I look awful.
"Yes, we do. If you'd come with your hair curled like it usually is then I wouldn't have to fix it but with Benjamin coming over I need you presentable."
"Mom, I don't want Benjamin coming over. He used to pick on me in grade school for not being like everyone else. I doubt he's gotten much better since."
"Julie, you haven't seen the man in over two decades and you are telling me what he's like now based on that? You mean to tell me there's no way he grew up after all these years?"
She wields the comb like a weapon, so I just stare at it as she waves it around near my head. "Umm, yes?" I answer finally.
"Well, can't you just trust me, dear? I've met him again at the local soup kitchen and he's a genuinely nice guy."
The whole conversation is going nowhere fast so I relent, accepting my fate as an old maid from the 1850s or something. At least there wasn't an animal shaped creation sitting atop my head this time as there had been the night she invited Sanjeet Something-or-other over for dinner. The woman needs to get better hobbies, because I'm tired of being married off. Well, whatever you call being married off when no one actually gets married.
"Julie! Julie, I'm speaking to you."
"Sorry, Mom. I must have zoned out."
"I asked you to pass me that pin." Her finger points toward the dressing table, but the only thing I see is a sparkly clip that, knowing my mother, is probably 300 years old and made of diamonds.
"This one?"
She nods. "As I was saying. I think he's gone into banking or consulting or the like and his company -- which he owns, I might add -- has been volunteering down at the kitchen and when I mentioned who I was he asked after you and that's why I invited him to dinner."
"Mom, you don't have to marry me off to every man who expresses even a little bit of interest."
The pin stabs me in the head as Mother applies a little too much force. "Julie, I am not trying to marry you off. I'm simply helping you find some gentlemen. You can see if you like them all on your own."
Which is still finding me someone to marry, but I really don't have the heart to explain that to her right now. Plus, I doubt she'll listen. "Yeah, Mom. You're right."
I manage to talk her out of making me change into a dress she picked out for me, citing my fabric preferences and comfort. She's never really understood my desire to only wear certain types of clothes. It used to be a huge fight with her, but she's mellowed over time I guess, because she backed down.
The second they saw me coming down the stairs, Gerard and Elodie were in stitches, smirking behind their hands trying to avoid Mom's glares. They failed and she tapped Gerard on the back of his head on the way by. "You'd better watch I don't do your hair as well," she said to Elodie. "And where is your husband?"
"Sal's probably at work," my dad offered.
"Salvador's actually with his parents tonight, Mom. Since he's coming with us for Christmas we thought it was best he saw them before we leave."
"Ah."
No one is quite so good at saying so much with one word as my mother is, I think. The disapproval dripped from her pursed lips. "Well, shall we head in for drinks until our guest arrives?"
I look at Gerard who looks at Elodie who looks at my dad. We are all holding drinks. It is my dad who answers for all of us. "Yes, let's head in. Meabh and Pierre are out back. I'll go get them."
"Be careful," Elodie whispered into my ear. "They've been engaged for less than three days and I swear getting within a block of them suffocates you with mushy love."
I spit my pop back into the glass I was holding to keep from choking. Fortunately, it is only El and Dad there to see it, so instead of a lecture I receive a fresh glass with some ginger ale and three ice cubes.
"I won't tell if you won't," Dad says when he hands me the glass. "Now I have to go interrupt Pierre and Meabh talking about constellations or wedding decor or how many kids they're going to have. Young love really is adorable."
I barely have time to make it to the sitting room before the doorbell rings and I hear the tell-tale click of Judy's heels as she attends the guests.
"May I take your coat?"
A muffled reply.
I'm on edge, waiting to see if Benjamin is as bad as I think he is.
Click-clack.
"The family is in the sitting room for drinks, sir." The heavy mahogany door swings open to reveal the scent of way too much cologne. I don't even have to see him to know this is going to be a very long night.
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Author's Note:
Chapter three and we finally meet Julie's mother. Boy is she a fun one! I've had to switch my posting days to Sunday and Wednesday. So you can always find a chapter if you come by on Sunday evening or Wednesday evening, though it may sometimes be posted a little early or sometimes even more frequently. 🤭 🤫
I spent a fair few hours on a virtual tour of a Toronto neighbourhood just for the descriptions you see here. Did I need to spend several hours on street view? No. But it was fun! See you on the weekend for the rest of Benjamin's dinner.