Just for the Summer(60)

Maddy glanced at me. “I mean, not really.”

“He doesn’t really talk to the nurses,” I said.

Mom chewed her lip again. “Okay.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Do you want me to give this to him when he’s done?” I asked, nodding at the bag.

She seemed to snap out of it. “Yeah. Yes. I baked him some zucchini bread. There’s a mushroom frittata, a cucumber feta salad—I mean, we’re living together. That’s a little weird, right? That nobody knows he has a girlfriend?”

Maddy and I looked at each other.

“I bet the other doctors know,” I volunteered.

“Oh, totally,” Maddy said, nodding.

“I don’t think he gets into his personal life with the nurses,” I said.

“We’re small beans,” Maddy added. “The doctors have their own lounge. There’s not a lot of mingling.”

Mom nodded, but she still looked off.

“Okay. Well, I gotta go,” she said. “See you girls at the house.”

We watched her walk out.

Maddy took the bag from the counter and peered into it. “Funny she brought him lunch and didn’t think to make any for you.”

I went back to my keyboard, trying to act like she didn’t just say what I’d been thinking.

Maybe it was unfair to expect more from Mom. I was a twenty-eight-year-old woman, capable of making my own lunch. She didn’t have to do that for me. Maybe she’d only had enough food for Neil. Maybe she didn’t know I’d be here. Yes, she could have texted me to ask, but maybe she thought I’d already packed food and she knew Neil didn’t so she only brought enough for him.

It hurt my feelings anyway.

“She hasn’t spent any time with you since the Lobsterfest, right?” Maddy asked, breaking into my thoughts.

I shook my head. “No. But she’s been trying to get me and Justin to hang out with her and Neil. It just hasn’t worked out yet.”

“She’s inviting you for Neil, just so you know.”

I looked at her. “What?”

“It makes her look bad that she ignores you so much. Neil probably mentions it. That’s why the only time she invites you anywhere is when Neil’s gonna be there.”

I stiffened. “No. There was the time she invited me to dinner when he was at work.”

“So he would come home and see you there. Or because she was bored and lonely. FYI, Amber only ever calls you when it serves Amber,” she said.

“That is not true.”

She cocked her head. “No? Think about all the times in the last ten years she’s reached out to you when it was just for you. She didn’t go to your high school graduation. She didn’t go to your nursing school graduation. She forgets your birthday almost every year.”

“She’s forgetful—”

“That woman spends her life asking people what day and time they were born and she can’t remember your birthday? Come on. A thousand bucks says she remembers Neil’s birthday.”

“Well, this year will be different,” I said matter-of-factly. “She’s here. I’m sure she’ll do something nice.”

She looked back at her screen. “I hope so.”

“And she couldn’t afford the time off work for my graduations. She asked for pictures—”

“To show people. Because it doesn’t fit the narrative that she’s a loving and doting mother if she doesn’t even have pictures of you to show people while she’s taking credit for your accomplishments.” She looked me in the eye. “We’ve been staying in the cottage for the last three weeks, literally across the way, and how many times has she come to see you there? Had Neil drop her off during one of their many sunset cruises? That would be zero. Everything Amber does is for Amber.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I said, my tone more clipped than I liked.

“Because you have this thing where you always believe the best in people—especially with her. It shouldn’t surprise you that she continues to be disappointing, yet again, but it always does and I’m sick of seeing you get hurt. You need to lower your expectations waaaaaay down. The bar is on the floor and she’ll bring a shovel, every time. The sooner you realize that, the happier you’ll be.”

I looked away from her and stared through the monitor in front of me, my nostrils flaring. I wanted to snap at her. I wanted to tell her to be quiet and to stop making things up.

Only she wasn’t making it up.

Maddy was right. I was an afterthought to my mother.

I don’t even know why it surprised me. I’d been taught this lesson a thousand times. But it wasn’t the slight that hurt. It was the loss of hope.

When I was little, there had been a time I was her whole universe. But the older I got, the less interested she seemed to be in me. She left me for longer and longer, and then eventually she didn’t come back for me at all. But I never stopped waiting. I never stopped wanting to be what Neil clearly was for her. And if I wasn’t now, then I never would be.

I always thought it was a proximity thing. She traveled a lot, she changed jobs all the time, she was busy, she was dealing with whatever Amber dealt with. But now I couldn’t rationalize why nothing was different, even though she was right here.