Page 47 of Silver Linings

twenty-eight

. . .

This day will end with me sick and bent over the toilet bowl.

I arrive at the store earlier than the girls so I can take it all in and make sure everything is ready, ensuring no Post-It was missed in the making of this store.

It’s still driving me mad that some things aren’t complete, namely the phone lines, website, and a little thing called a new store name.

But I am trying to make peace with the idea that this was a physical reopening; I could always do a digital rebrand in a few weeks once everything is ironed out and running smoothly.

The renovation was about drawing in new customers and starting to turn a profit—the rest could come later.

At least that was what everyone has been telling me so my eye would stop twitching.

The store is nearly unrecognizable. Gone are the decades old warm toned and bowing bookshelves filled with unsold titles. The floor is no longer creaking, and the walls are a sad, time yellowed beige no more. Instead, Hendrix and I managed to create something both bold and timeless.

With the new flooring, we sanded down the area tables, staining them with a more neutral shade that complimented the pale sage green of the walls.

All the shelves are now a brilliant white, helping to offset books on the shelves instead of feeling lost. I finished off the place with bold floral rugs in shades of pale pink, lavender, and green, accenting the free space on the wall behind the counter with a gallery of vintage gold frames.

One day, I would fix the stairs and transform the second floor, just not anytime soon.

I need to get out of the financial hole I buried myself in first.

I’m lighting a candle, tying balloons around the shop, and setting up some beverages for patrons when the front door opens, letting in a cold snap of wind.

“Sorry, we aren’t open for another hour. Please come ba–”

“The place looks great, Silly.”

Every ounce of blood leaves my body as I stand frozen, unable to turn around, to face her.

“Don’t call me that,” I gasp out on a breath that barely escapes my body.

“Silver, please.” There’s a desperation in her tone that has no right to be there. She left . She chose this reaction.

I turn to her and finally look at the face I haven’t seen in years by her own volition.

She’s no longer the mother I remember; she’s older now, with grey hairs littered throughout her blonde strands, deeper lines around her eyes.

Her face is beautiful—it makes me mad, and she flinches back at whatever it is she sees on mine.

Maybe it’s the anger or the resemblance to my father that affects her so much.

I don’t know. I don’t particularly care.

“What are you doing here?”

“I–I wanted to support you.”

I scoff. “Since when?”

The silence is deafening. She’s had two decades to support me, and she never showed up.

Not for recitals or holidays or birthdays.

She wasn’t there when I got my first period, or when I lost my virginity and was confused.

She’s never met my best friend or come to our graduations or took us trick-or-treating.

She’s had twenty years of opportunities and chose herself every single time. So why show up now, for this?

“I know there’s some bad blood between us–”

“That’s one way to describe abandoning your child,” I murmur under my breath.

Hendrix words from earlier in the week float to the forefront of my mind. Choosing yourself over someone who hurt you beyond compare is not cowardice. It’s bravery.

“—but I was just hoping we could put that behind us.” Her tone is soft, like she’s trying to gentle parent me into forgiveness. It feels manipulative.

My vision starts to spot, and I’m battling anger and devastation in equal measures. I decide to focus on the anger, choosing to ignore the latter, as I snap.

“You talk about what you did as if you ruined my favorite sweater! You dropped me off at Nan’s a week after Dad died and never came back.

I waited for you, for months— years —and you never showed.

All I got was a half-assed birthday card and a phone call whenever you could be bothered to remember.

And now you come here, uninvited , on the biggest day of my life, to what? Ask for a do-over?”

She has the good sense to look sheepish. “You wouldn’t answer my calls. What was I supposed to do?” Apparently, all sense has flown out the building.

“Take the fucking hint!”

“Silly, please. We can fix this,” she urges. So desperate, and for what? I don’t understand this sudden need to reclaim her motherhood.

“ You don’t get to call me that. That was Dad’s name for me.

Remember him? Because he wouldn’t recognize you.

” She jerks back as if I’ve slapped her.

My hand comes to rest on the necklace he gave me before he died, and it gives me a strange sort of comfort, holding on to it like it’s imbuing me with his strength.

Tears threaten to spill, but I refuse to give in to that vulnerability, to show her how badly she’s hurt me for the last twenty years.

“Why are you really here?” I ask.

“I have something for you.”

“I don’t want it.”

“You get that stubbornness from your dad, you know.” She huffs a laugh that makes me grind my teeth.

“Good.”

The silence permeating the room is suffocating, and the woman trying to masquerade as my mother shifts back and forth, clearly weighing a decision before deciding to drop a nuclear bomb on the last dregs of our fractured relationship.

“I’m getting remarried.” The words echo through my mind, pin balling around and banging against my skull. I wish I could say it stopped there, but that would have been a mercy. “Paul wanted me to try and mend our relationship. He wants to meet you.”

“Well, if Paul wants it.” I let the unspoken words hang in the air. Paul may want to meet me, but if he wasn’t suggesting it, would she have ever even showed up here?

“He’s got two young kids and wants them to know you too.” My stomach sinks, and a painful pricking starts behind my eyes. I don’t think that’s the good news she thinks it is. All I hear is there are kids she’s willing to raise and nurture, just not me. It stings more than salt on a festering wound.

“I want you to leave. Please.”

“Silver–” She moves to take a step towards me.

“No!” I shout, stopping her with a upheld hand.

“You don’t get to show up here after twenty years and try to upend my life!

I do not owe you anything when you have given me nothing .

I stopped waiting for you to show up, stopped waiting for anyone to show up for me because of you and your choices.

I have spent years feeling unlovable, squeezing myself into a fun and agreeable mould, keeping everyone at arm’s length because I was afraid they would all just leave like you did.

So forgive me if I don’t feel inclined to accommodate you now. ”

The tears finally fall, and I roughly wipe them away with the back of my hands.

“Please, just go.”

She stares at me, face unreadable, before she rifles around in her bag, pulling out a cream envelope and handing it out to me. When I make no move to take it from her, she walks toward the cash wrap and sets it down on the smooth wood surface before heading towards the entrance.

She turns back when she’s at the front door, pausing with her hand on the new brass fixture.

“I loved him, you know, your dad. Probably too much.” And that love poisoned everything in the end.

She spares me one last glance, as if she’s memorizing my face, cataloging all the ways it might change in the future, how it might look like hers. A future she won’t see.

And you didn’t love me enough , I think as she walks out the door and out of my life.

I rest my hands against the table in front of me, taking a deep breath in, and start to cry.

And cry. And cry. I cry until my lungs ache and my eyes burn from exertion, and when it seems there’s no moisture in my body left to release, I reach for my phone and dial the one person whose voice I need to hear most, whose presence will tether me back to Earth and make me feel like everything will be alright.

But the phone just rings and rings and rings before taking me to an automated voicemail.

I pull the phone from my ear, disappointed but knowing I’ll see him soon enough. He’ll wrap his strong arms around me and tell me he’s proud of me in his deep baritone, and everything will be okay after that.

Because he’s the sure thing I never expected.

“Jesus Christ. Maybe I would’ve updated this shit hole years ago if I knew it would make this much of a difference.” I sent Pat an email inviting her to the reopening if she was still in town, hoping she would be able to come and see her place was in good hands.

“Do you like it?”

“Do you?” she asks.

I scan the room, seeing people of all ages and walks of life moseying around, books in hand, smiles on their faces. I also see Hendrix everywhere. He’s in every paint stroke, perfect shelf alignment, and beam of crown molding—even though he’s still not here.

I turn to Pat and nod. “I don’t think I realized how much this place meant to me until the threat of losing it happened. I’ll owe you forever for letting me do this.”

“You owe me nothing as long as the checks clear,” she jokes, even as her face is set in a look of severe stoicism.

“Thank you for coming.”

“Honey, nothing could keep me away.” She grabs my hand, which is a bit of a shock to the system, because Pat has never been affectionate. “I’ve watched you grow up here over the last ten years. It feels right that it belongs to you.” She pats my cheek and walks away.

We’ve been open for a couple hours, and I’ve never seen the store so busy.