Folly Beach - Dorothea Benton Frank [103]
“I guess you don’t miss him too much, huh?”
“Sara? I think the facts and details surrounding his death might be a little larger and more profound for me than for you or Russ. But you should never doubt the fact that he loved you and your brother very much.”
“And you don’t think he loved you, do you?”
“Oh, I think there was a time when he absolutely did. But I think he had too much terrible anxiety over the last years of his life and that anxiety trumped whatever feelings of affection he might have ever had for me. I don’t think he did the things he did to deliberately hurt me. But any outside observer would say that he was absolutely his first priority. He had ceased to be a partner in our relationship years ago. And I can tell you this about his love for me—it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m okay with it.”
“Humph. You’re in love with that John guy, aren’t you? I can’t believe you about anything. You’re rationalizing having an affair with this guy for some reason . . .”
“Wait just a minute, young lady. You don’t dare speak to me this way.”
“Oh! I get it now! The reason you don’t want me to come is because you’re having this affair and you don’t want me to see, isn’t that it? Dad’s been dead for maybe ten minutes and you’re already involved with somebody else? Nice work, Mom.”
“Look, Sara, I know you were never a morning person but this conversation is out of control. When you want to apologize for being so disrespectful and when you think you can have a reasonable discussion about your aunt Daisy’s condition, call me back. In the meantime, I’m hanging up.”
And with that, I pressed the end button.
And I felt terrible. I hated it when Sara and I had words. And I didn’t know exactly why she thought it was all right to let whatever was rolling across her brain roll across her tongue and out into the air. She was her father’s daughter if ever there was one. Like Addison, she had always had a problem with her mouth. Since she was a little girl, I would tell her that you just can’t go around saying whatever you want to people without consequences. It had cost her many friendships and boyfriends and she never seemed to care too much. Their perceived transgressions only made her furious. In Sara’s mind, she always thought she was right and she had to have the last word. It was more important to her to vent and to walk away, think things through and come back another day, making a different case for her point of view. She did not like to be on the receiving end of any kind of guidance from anyone. Ever. They say you can raise one hundred boys for the energy it takes to raise one girl and I think truer words were never spoken. I loved my ballistic girl more than anyone in this world, except for my son, and I knew her attitude got in between her and happiness but she was a grown woman and it would be up to the world now to teach her the lessons she needed to learn. All that said, I wasn’t going to let her take a bite out of me whenever the mood struck.
Now, Russ? Russ was born easygoing and nonjudgmental. Oh, we’d had some issues like him not being forthcoming with a bad grade or him breaking curfew and when he was in high school, beer went missing now and then. But overall? He seemed happy to stay with the program and, mostly, he did what he was supposed to do. Maybe playing sports had a lot to do with it, because they put demands on his time that he had to meet if he wanted to play. But I will never understand why he fell in love with Alice and married her. He dated so many cute girls who were so sweet. Ah well, I’m not the only mother in the world who ever pondered that question.
My phone rang. It was the Confrontational One. I sighed and took the call.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Okay,” I said.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you, too,” I said.
“You’re sure I really don’t need to quit my stinking stupid job and come to South Carolina?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Do you want to talk about work? How’s it going?”
“It’s going nowhere, that’s how. I mean, you want to talk about doing thankless work