Page 5 of Delayed Intention

So here I am… Could I be on the edge of real change?

I mean, why do I have to make my mother feel better about something I don’t want to do in the first place?

I keep telling her I don’t want to go on dates with these men she sets me up with.

Why should I be the one who feels bad when it doesn’t work out?

Every Sunday, it’s the same thing, over and over, repeatedly.

I should just start saying no. I try to imagine saying no to my mother and grimace.

I feel my phone vibrating in my hand. Now my sister Tamar is calling.

Why can’t they all just text like normal people?

I hate answering the phone. With a text, you know what you’re getting into.

But a phone call could be anything. Besides, I can’t stand talking on the phone because not being able to read another person’s social cues freaks me out.

I have a hard enough time reading people who are right in front of me. I’m helpless over the phone.

Another vibration, this time, thank God, I got a text from Daniella, my other sister.

Daniella

Lily, WTF. Mom is freaking out trying to reach you. Call her. She’s ruining my night.

I scoff. Daniella is another sister who has no time for what she refers to as ‘ Lily’s bullshit.

’ One of her hobbies seems to be listing the ways I disappoint our mother and what I could do differently.

I roll my eyes, looking at her text again—she lives a charmed life with a doting husband. I’m sure her night has been just fine.

Another vibration. This time, my sister Roselyn—my one ally in the family—

Roslyn

Lily - Honey call me when u get this.

Don’t talk to the others before u return this message. Trust me

Yikes . It must be serious. Walking into my place after the driver drops me off, I keep the lights low for a sense of calm and call Roselyn.

“Hey Ros, everything okay?”

She sighs. “I’m just going to rip the bandage off and tell you.”

“Okay, but be quick, Mom has called me two more times since you texted me.”

“Ed is getting married, God willing. He asked Felicia to marry him.”

Edmond Mendes. My little brother . He’s getting married. And I’ve never had a boyfriend.

Roselyn, an emergency medicine physician, is the one sibling I’m on good terms with.

She told me in her years in the ER, she’s seen people come in with anxiety and panic disorders as well as a variety of neurodivergent patients, and she now sees that I do have actual differences—that I don’t mean to be obtuse or difficult.

She’s even apologized for being a part of our mother’s gaslighting committee.

Recently, her daughter has seemed to take after me, which is unfortunate but has brought Roselyn and me closer together.

Of course, Roselyn doesn’t even know half of what I’ve been through.

Maybe, one day, I could tell her because she’s the one person who kind of gets me.

But not now. Now, she’s probably convinced that I’m going to spiral because I’m the last of our siblings to be single.

Of course, she has no way of knowing I couldn’t care less.

Since none of us talk about anything real, how would she know?

I mean, it isn’t a good look for me, but I’m not surprised.

I think about all of this as I choose my words.

“Ros, it’s fine. I mean, it doesn’t matter because what difference does it make? I’m fine.”

The truth is my siblings and all of my cousins could get married, and I know I will be all right on my own.

I’m certain I’m better off this way. If only everyone would stop bugging me about it because that’s the only part of being single I don’t like—the negative attention from my family.

I have always believed love does exist. I love the idea of love.

Cozy romance movies and books are my jam.

There just isn’t someone out there for me.

And even if there were, what would I do with them?

Sit a comfortable two feet away and hang out?

I just wish my family believed that I knew my mind.

I am considering trying to manufacture some semblance of enthusiasm for my brother’s upcoming nuptials, but Roselyn would call out my lie, and she’d be right.

“Lily, I thought maybe you’d be upset. You’d tell me if you were, right? I wouldn’t judge.”

“Roselyn, I promise, I’m not upset.”

She takes a breath. “Okay, I don’t understand, but I hear you and I believe you. You should know, though, Mom is furious he had the nerve to ask someone before you could get married.”

“That’s ridiculous. This isn’t Victorian England. I can be unmarried before, during, or after my little brother and be a fully functioning person.”

“You know that’s not what mother wants for you.”

“Oh, I know. Speaking of that, do you know did she hear about my date? Using that term loosely, by the way.”

“Oh, Lily, what happened? Was it horrible?” Ros and her husband are the only people on my side who also wish mom would stop setting me up every week.

Roselyn even told me once that Mom should work toward accepting me as I am rather than trying to fix me all the time.

Of course, I’m pretty sure Roselyn thinks I’m gay.

Which I’m not. But I also have not dared to tell her about the real issues at hand.

So, I haven’t dispelled that misunderstanding either.

One day, maybe, I will tell her the truth.

“It wasn’t bad or anything, although it did end in about ten minutes. Might be a new record for me. He knew going in he didn’t want to date me. That was my impression anyway.”

“Listen, little sister, I love you and totally support you, okay?”

I smile. “I know Ros, and thank you for saying so.”

“I have an ambulance coming in—gotta run.”

“Bye, Ros.”

“Bye.”

Two more missed calls from Mom. I wonder if she could see me as I am, see the truth about me, maybe she would just leave me alone. Of course, I did try to tell her the truth—once—and she did what she always does. She didn’t believe me and made her own version of the truth.

This dating issue was one way my mother proved to me that when it matters the most, she cares more about what people think about the family than how I am.

She’d proven that before, when the unthinkable happened to me.

That was the most horrific period of my life and is still proving to be a major obstacle when I am trying to date.

I trust no one. I sigh again, thinking about how I didn’t even bring it up to my therapist until three weeks ago.

Even then, I couldn’t tell Monica—I had to ask her if I could write it in a letter. Pathetic .

Mom is calling again as indicated by her name appearing on my phone.

To hell with it.

“Hi Mom!” I try for cheery and breathless. “Sorry, busy evening, what’s up? I missed some calls from you?”

“Lily.” I could practically hear the smile on her perfect lips, which was more ominous than her anger would be.

I understand now, from Monica, that my mother gets something out of feeling superior to other people, and I’ve always been her easiest target.

With a sense of panic, I realize she is talking and I’m not listening.

“…and you’ve been given every opportunity to have a full life,” I guess we are going into the vault for this lecture, “and instead you have that terrible job being an assistant rather than the physician you should be.”

I bite my tongue as my mother insults my entire profession because I’ve been to this party before, and there is no point in bothering to defend myself or my colleagues.

I look down at my smartwatch and see my heart rate is now up to 110 as I wait with trepidation for whatever real insult is coming my way.

Right now, she’s still in her warm-up exercises.

“Now, after wasting so much time and not working to improve yourself, your brother is going to have to get married ahead of you.” Okay, Ros warned me about this, and that wasn’t so bad.

Thank you, Roselyn. Of course, she could just be gearing up for the big finale.

I steady my nerves by pinching the skin on the inside of my arm, hard.

“You know, Lily, I did not want to say anything…” She takes an opportunity to sigh as I reflect that nothing good has ever come after that phrase in the history of the spoken word, “…but if you loved me, you would at least make an effort to improve yourself. Did you know Edmond got engaged three months ago?”

Wait, what?

“…but no one could bring themselves to tell you because we just knew you would be devastated that your little brother was getting married before you.”

What the hell?

And right now, I don’t know what hurts more: the fact that she truly doesn’t know me well enough to know I would have been happy for my brother rather than making it about me.

Or the possibility that she does know me well enough to understand the way to break my heart would be to have the rest of my family keep a secret from me.

And then, like Lucy Westenra, I expose my neck for the real pain by confirming, “Everyone knew but me? Even Roselyn?”

Way to walk right into the spider’s web, Lily Shoshana.

“Of course, everyone knew but you. I told them all to keep it from you.”

Bitch —and even though it was in my head, I cover my mouth with my free hand, immediately shocked by the audacity I have, to call her a name. Externally, I stay silent and don’t react, digging my nails into my palm, hard enough to hurt.

Ellen, it seems, is not done. “Do you have any idea how hard this has been for me? Honestly, Lily, I don’t know why Roselyn indulges you, the way you try to rewrite history with your labels and nonsense.

” She went on to attack my diagnosis of anxiety disorder since, according to my mother, you can pay enough money, and they will tell you whatever you want to hear.

But I stopped listening because this was all too far below the belt.

Ros knew. And kept it secret.

The one sibling I had a narrow, rickety bridge with.

My throat burns, and my eyes fill with tears.

My mother is still talking about the poor family of Ed’s fiancée—how they had to be indoctrinated into this scheme of my mother’s and what a burden it was for all of them to keep this secret from me.

How embarrassing for her to have a daughter like me.

This means that she can pretend this is about protecting my feelings for the crowd while simultaneously putting salt in an old wound about my being the outsider in this family.

She is still going on about how all of this was so hard on everyone when I can’t help myself and blurt out a question that has plagued me for years.

“Why do you hate me so much?”

She took the one fragile connection I had with one of my siblings and broke it just like that.

“My God, Lily, get over yourself. Why does everything have to be about you?”

And that was the last straw. I know I will pay for it later, but I can’t take it anymore, so with that last rhetorical question tossed my way, I hung up on my mother.