Too Good to Be True - Kristan Higgins [62]
“Your father and I are perfectly…” Her voice trailed off, and she studied her coffee cup as if a light was abruptly dawning.
“Maybe you should move in with Grace, too,” Margaret suggested, raising an eyebrow.
“Okay, very funny. No. You can’t, Mom.” I shot Margs a threatening look. “Seriously, Mom,” I said slowly. “You and Dad love each other, right? You just like to bicker.”
“Oh, Grace,” she sighed. “What’s love got to do with it?”
“Thank you, Tina Turner,” Margaret quipped.
“I’m hoping love has a lot to do with it,” I protested.
Mom sighed. “Who knows what love is?” She waved her hand dismissively.
“Love is a battlefield,” Margaret murmured.
“All you need is love,” I countered.
“Love stinks,” she returned.
“Shut up, Margs,” I said. “Mom? You were saying?”
She sighed. “You get so used to someone… I don’t know. Some days, I want to kill your father with a dull knife. He’s a boring old tax attorney, for heaven’s sake. His idea of fun is to lay down and play dead at one of those stupid Civil War battles.”
“Hey. I love those stupid battles,” I interjected, but she ignored me.
“But I don’t just walk away, either, Margaret. We did, after all, vow to love and cherish each other, even if it kills us.”
“Gosh. That’s beautiful,” Margaret said.
“But my word, he gets on my nerves, making fun of my art! What does he do? Runs around in dress-up clothes, firing guns. I create. I celebrate the female form. I am capable of expressing myself by more than grunts and sarcasm. I—”
“More coffee, Mom?” Margs asked.
“No. I have to go.” Still, she remained in her chair.
“Mom,” I asked cautiously, “why do you, uh, celebrate the female form, as you put it? How did that get started?” Margaret gave me a dark look, but I was a little curious. I was in graduate school when Mom discovered herself, as it were.
She smiled. “The truth is, it was an accident. I was trying to make one of those little glass balls that hang in the window or on a Christmas tree, you know? And I was having trouble tying off the end, and your father came in and said it looked like a nipple. So I told him it was, and he turned absolutely purple and I thought, why not? If your father had that kind of a reaction to it, what would someone else think? So I took it down to Chimera, and they loved it.”
“Mmm,” I murmured. “What’s not to love?”
“I mean it, Grace. The Hartford Courant called me a postmodern feminist with the aesthetic appeal of Mapplethorpe and O’Keeffe on acid.”
“All from a screwed up Christmas ornament,” Margaret interjected.
“The first one was accidental, Margaret. The rest are a celebration of the physiological miracle that is Woman,” Mom pronounced. “I love what I do, even if you girls are too Puritanical to properly appreciate my art. I have a new career and people admire me. And if it tortures your father, that’s just gravy.”
“Yes,” Margs said. “Why not torture Dad? He’s only given you everything.”
“Well, Margaret, dear, I’d counter that by saying he’s the one who got everything, and you of all people should appreciate my position. I became wallpaper, girls. He was more than happy to come home, be served a martini and a dinner I slaved over for hours in a house that was immaculate with children who were smart, well-behaved and gorgeous, then pop into bed for some rowdy sex.”
Margaret and I recoiled in identical horror.
Mom turned a hard eye on Margaret. “He was completely spoiled, and I was invisible. So if I’m torturing him, Margaret, darling firstborn of my loins, you of all people might say, ‘Well done, Mother.’ Because at least he’s noticing me now, and I didn’t even have to go running to my sister’s house.”
“Youch,” Margaret said. “I’m bleeding, Grace.” Oddly, she was smiling.
“Please stop fighting, you two,” I said. “Mom, we’re very proud of you. You’re, um, a visionary. Really.”
“Thank you, dear,” Mom said, standing up. “Well, I have to run now. I’m giving a talk at the library on my art and inspiration.”
“Adults only, I’m guessing,” Margaret murmured, taking