Bits of snow clung to my hair when I walked in the house the next week. My cheeks, pinched from the cold, prickled when a rush of heat blew across my face. Mom stood at the bottom of the stairs holding a handful of fake flowers in one hand and an empty vase in the other.
"Oh, hi Lexie. I didn't realize you were out. I thought you were in the basement."
"Bitsy challenged us to take more walks at our meeting yesterday," I said, unwinding the scarf and setting it on the coatrack. "Since Kenz and I didn't have Zumba tonight, I thought I'd stroll around the neighborhood."
Mom blinked a few times. "Really?"
"Yeah."
"That's . . . that's great. I've been meaning to tell you that you're looking really good."
I shrugged my coat off. "Oh, thanks."
"Are you feeling good too?"
"Yeah." If I admitted that being healthy felt better, would Mom rub it in my face? Would she say I told you so? "I actually . . . I don't think I've ever felt this good before."
She gave me a careful smile. "That's great."
Mom and I didn't speak much on a daily basis, outside the trivialities of who was going to go grocery shopping or do the chores. Kenzie had Mom wrapped up in wedding plans, and I avoided confrontation by hiding downstairs. It had been a while since the two of us had really been in the same room. Not to mention I had a history of being sensitive about anything regarding my weight, so I'd purposefully avoided talking to Mom about anything related to the Health and Happiness Society.
We stood in the awkward silence for an interminable minute.
"How are the wedding plans?" I asked.
"Fine." She shook the plastic flowers in her hand. "Just trying out a few possible arrangements. I'm not really sure how to organize flowers into a bouquet, but Kenzie's determined to save money on fake flowers."
"Do you want some help?"
Her eyebrows rose. "From you?"
"Sure."
"Uh . . . yes. I'd love some."
A plethora of fake flowers, crunchy green balls, a hot glue gun, and different vases littered the table in the dining room already. Most of the flowers were a light rosebud color, while others blazed hot pink. Springs of baby's breath and a few white roses sat on the counter as the only non-pink options.
"There's no rhyme or reason to it, really. I told Kenz that I'd put together a sample of bouquets, and she could pick which one she liked. Start putting something together, if you'd like."
I picked up a light pink tulip and paired it with baby's breath. Mom stood across from me on the other side of the table while we worked in silence.
"How are your classes going?"
Good, I thought of responding, the way I did whenever she asked in passing. But tonight I sensed a dropping of the walls and decided to be honest.
"Not bad, but I'm frustrated with my advisor, Miss Bliss."
Mom seemed to hold her breath. "Oh?"
"I'm applying for a competitive internship with Delta Publishing in New York City, and she wants me to submit to writing competitions. She thinks if I show I can write then I'll have a better chance of getting the job."
"New York? I had no idea you were looking at an internship."
A sheepish sense of shame crept over me. I hadn't exactly been open lately. "Yeah, just thinking about it."
I set down the flowers I'd compiled so far and stood, headed for the fridge as if on autopilot. There had been an old donut of Kenzie's earlier this morning that I had avoided but would taste wonderful now.
Chocolate frosting will make this conversation with Mom less awkward.
Light spilled into the kitchen when I pulled open the fridge. Just as I reached for the donut container, I stopped.
What am I doing?
Last time I'd had an encounter with Mom, this exact thing had happened. I turned to the ever-ready arms of food and binged almost uncontrollably. Mom kept working, oblivious to the pause in my universe, the shift in time, as my frozen arm remained halfway into the fridge. Did I want to go down that path again?
No. I grabbed a water bottle instead. No. This time, I'll deal with my emotions. I won't eat them.
"Want a water bottle, Mom?"
"Sure."
When I returned sans food, she glanced at the two water bottles in my hand. Mom had never been good at hiding her surprise.
"Thanks," she said, accepting it. I twisted the cap off, chugged half of it—I'd forgotten that I'd been thirsty from my walk—and then returned to my flowers.
"Anyway," I continued, as if I had never stopped my explanation. "Miss Bliss wants me to submit my writing, but I don't know what to write about. Some of the competitions have writing prompts, but none of them appeal to me. She says to find something I'm passionate about, but . . ."
I paused. I've never been passionate about anything except food, and look where that got me?
"What about your father?" Mom asked. "You were so close to him."
A twinge of longing, perhaps pain, had come into her voice, although she tried to cover it with a forced smile. I stared at her in surprise.
"Write about Dad?"
She shrugged. "Why not? He meant the world to you, Lex. You were always glued to his side."
I studied the hurt on her face. "Mom," I said quietly, surprised to hear the words moving from my brain to my lips, "did you ever feel bad because I was so close to Dad?"
Tears rose in her eyes. "What do you mean?" she asked with a little laugh, although she almost choked on it. "I was glad you were so close with him. Heaven knows he needed someone who understood him. I never did."
"What do you mean?"
"Your father was a good man, but he wasn't perfect. Instead of talking through our problems, he would just eat. And eat. A lot of things went unsaid because of it. Instead of spending time together, he wanted to be out to dinner or watching his favorite TV show. We didn't do much."
I'd always brushed Mom off as an emotional creature growing up, but suddenly I saw it in a different light. All those nights sitting in front of the TV with Dad, watching games on Saturday, spending half of the baseball games we'd attend trying out different food vendors.
Where was Mom during all this?
I opened my mouth to say something but shut it again. "I had no idea," I whispered, dumbstruck. "I just . . . I just thought that you didn't like Dad. That you weren't attracted to him because he was overweight."
"Not like him?" she asked. "Lexie, I loved your father no matter what he weighed. But food became his mistress. And me? I . . . I don't know what I was. Then . . ."
Her frightened gaze finished the rest of her statement. Then he dragged you down that road with him.
He did. Dad certainly had taught me how to cope with life—or not cope with life—through food. All that time Mom had been trying to put me on diets, telling me that I needed to lose weight, she'd really just been terrified that I'd end up like Dad: obsessed with food. Dad had been my hero. My best friend. The one who understood. The guy who didn't care what others thought. But now I realized that perhaps he was just as messed up as me all this time.
"I'm sorry," I said, meeting her watery gaze. "I had no idea, Mom."
A tremulous smile crossed her lips. She reached over and took my hand. "It's okay, Lexie. You didn't know. You were just a girl."
"I won't do what Dad did to you. Well . . . maybe I did in the past. Okay," I admitted reluctantly, my forehead furrowing, "I've done to you just what Dad did, but I won't anymore. Everything is different for me now. I'm getting healthy in lots of ways. I'm . . . going to be happy too. Happy with me, happy with my size, happy with my life. And . . . I'll try."
A tear dropped down her cheek as she squeezed my hand.
"That sounds like the most wonderful thing I've ever heard, Lexie girl. The most wonderful thing."
What do you think of Lexie and her Mom's relationship?
And in honor of national donut day earlier this month, I bought a couple for my husband, tried them, and couldn't stomach them. Why do they look so yummy in pictures but fail to live up? #WHY
Love your faces. MUAH.