“I couldn’t miss the opportunity to congratulate you,” I justified the act of taking her call. “Are you excited? You will be the most fashionable grandmother in the entire neighborhood.”
My mother spent her whole life preoccupied with her hairdos and outfits. The other thing that interested her the most was other people’s opinion of her and her children. Not because someone might hurt us by talking shit, but because she couldn’t be associated with someone with bad rep.
“How are you dealing with the fact that your daughter is having an illegitimate child?”
“They are getting married,” she answered in a calm, controlled, and no doubt rehearsed manner.
“Well, trying to get married and actually being married are two very different things.”
“Clementine is trying to do the right thing. She is starting a family. No one expects it from you, but you could respect that and not use the way it’s happening as weapon against me.” She paused for a moment, waiting for me to repent for my behavior.
I didn’t. She continued.
“Am I happy that my youngest is getting married because she’s pregnant? No. But I’m happy that at least one of my children is getting married. Madison is so picky she will never find someone to her taste. Did she tell you I set her up with a cute pediatrician? She told him she’s not interested. How can she not be interested in a doctor?”
My thoughts flew to Hannah Spencer and her surgeon boyfriend, but I forced myself to follow the conversation.
“I really don’t get women. What’s up with that marrying a doctor fixation?”
“Women like stability, Tyler. Something that you seem to avoid on purpose, so I don’t think I can explain it to you.”
“Why exactly did you call again?” I didn’t like where the conversation was headed.
“To see what you think about the fact that you are so detached, that your sister had to fly to Boston to tell you she’s pregnant because you refused to pick up your phone.”
“I think she could have texted. I didn’t need an announcement in person. It would have also been way cheaper.”
“Maybe she needed to feel her older brother’s support.”
Well, Mom, maybe she wouldn’t need her older brother’s support if she had a decent mother.
“Clem knows I’m not the person to seek emotional support from. Besides she has a living, breathing mother who had three children and could actually tell her something reassuring.”
“Unfortunately for us all, I can’t. I don’t think I did anything right with any of you at this point.”
“Fake it till you make it. Do the right thing now by the only child that chose to live less than three thousand miles away from you.”
Sylvia ignored my remark and continued.
“You snuck out of that restaurant without giving her a chance to talk to you.”
So Clem called Mom and complained I ditched her. I used to be her closest person in our screwed-up family. She used to call me to bitch about the others. But ever since she patched things up with our older sister Madison and started to be civil with our mom, Clem was stripped of the title of the most damaged sibling. Somehow the three women in my family ganged up against me and assigned that role to me.
“I’ll talk with her later,” I said and took a look at my free hand. I promised her coffee but maybe I should just do it over the phone. It didn’t seem like a good idea to stand in front of my pregnant sister all beaten up like that.
“Don’t just talk with her,” my mother warned. “You are stuck, Tyler. Madison is chasing her carrier. Clementine is starting a family. And what do you do? You waste your life. Get your act together and do the right thing. Start with your sister.”
Chapter Six
Hannah
On Sunday afternoon, I was seeing Lucas and Clem off at the airport. She was in a bad mood. Tyler never took her out for coffee like he promised.
“I had to ask him over the phone. And you can imagine how that went.”
Lucas and I exchanged looks, then he slid a hand over Clem’s shoulders and kissed her hair. My heart melted. I wanted what they had so much.
“Yes, I can imagine how that went,” I said. “I thought it would be a challenge to persuade him in person too though. A camping trip? Not exactly Tyler’s style.”
I couldn’t picture Tyler Hartley out in the wild. When he was in high school? Sure. Sitting around a bonfire, drunk and with a girl in his lap. But the man he had become? Not a chance. He looked so in sync with himself behind that bar counter the first night I saw him. With his black dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He enjoyed the noise, the crowds, the girls.
“Can you picture it?” I asked both Clem and Lucas. “Tyler sharing a tent with the guys? Walking around in the woods? I think the silence alone will make him lose his mind.” I tried to make a joke, but apparently Clem wasn’t in the right spirit.
“I want him to bond with Lucas before the baby is born.”
“It’s fine, babe,” Lucas joined the conversation. “We don’t have to bond.”
“I know you don’t have to. But I wanted him to make an effort. I don’t know what I was thinking. I know him well enough to know you can’t count on him for anything.”
“Is it that important for you?” I asked.
“Yes. I want my child to have an uncle.” Her voice cracked.
I didn’t have it in me to tell her that Troy, Lucas’s sixteen-year-old brother, was probably going to be better at that job than her twenty-seven-year-old one.
I looked at Lucas and made him a sign with my head to beat it. He rolled his eyes but left us alone.
“What’s bothering you?” I asked her. “And don’t give me the crap answer that pregnant women are emotional or that it’s just hormones.”
“You know me too well,” Clem squeezed my hand with a sad smile on her face.
“Is everything okay between you and Lucas?”
“Of course. He’s the best.”
“What is it then?”
Her gaze found her fiancé. He was leaning against a wall, arms crossed over his chest, looking at us with concern in his eyes.
“I’m worried. I don’t know if I can be a good mother. Lucas will be the best father in the whole world. So, I guess he will compensate.”
“It’s totally normal to be worried. I’m sure every future mother goes through that.”
“Yeah. But not every future mother hated her own mother like I did. What do I know about having a healthy relationship with your children? What if I can’t bond with my child, just like my mother couldn’t bond with me?”
“Oh, Clem,” I dragged her in my arms. “I know you take some weird satisfaction in comparing yourself with Sylvia, but believe me. You are not your mother. Sure, you have some of her in you, but you will never be the kind of a mother she was to you.”
Lucas approached us. Apparently, the time he could spend away from her while she was upset was limited. She leaned on him and the tension in her body subsided.
Watching them, I couldn’t help but think about Nick and me. We were a good fit, but we never shared a connection like that. Maybe we needed to spend more time together.