The Fake Out by Sharon M. Peterson
SIXTY
So… if I told you that you had a beautiful body,
would you hold it against me?
—KEN S.
Next morning, Mama was up before me.
“Come eat breakfast with me,” she said.
I grabbed a yogurt and a granola bar and slid into a chair across from her at the table. After unwrapping the bar, I broke it into smaller chunks.
Mama touched the back of my left hand. “You’re still wearing the ring.”
With a start, I held out my hand. “I guess I forgot I had it on.”
I hadn’t forgotten; I just didn’t want to take it off. I know, pathetic. My heart twisted as I slipped it off and set in on the table between us. Mama picked it up and held it to the light, turning the stone a rainbow of colors.
“It’s so beautiful. I looked up what an opal is supposed to represent. Do you know?”
I shook my head.
She lightly ran a finger over the stone. “Hope and love and goodness. Isn’t that lovely? Those are things a marriage should be built on.”
“Piper picked it out,” I said, not quite meeting her eye. “She probably had no idea it meant something like that.”
Mama set the ring down carefully. “Maybe so.”
“Is that how it was with you and Dad at first? Hope and love and goodness?”
Mama looked at me with surprise. I was surprised too. I rarely ever brought up my father unless it was followed by a lot of very not nice things.
“I wouldn’t say that. It felt exciting and dangerous. I was a stupid girl, just out of high school. He was six years older and so handsome and interested in me, of all people.” She sighed. “I wasn’t like you, honey. I think you were born fully grown, always had a good head on your shoulders. It was intimidating being your mother sometimes.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes. I wasn’t even twenty when you were born. I had no idea what I was doing. Your father and I had left Two Harts, so I didn’t even have my own mama to help me.” Frowning, she stared into her coffee cup. “I know things weren’t easy for you, Mae. I—I have a lot of guilt about that.”
“Mama—”
She held up a hand. “No, no. Let me get it all out. I am sorry that my decisions affected you. I’ll never regret marrying your father because he gave me you two girls, but I will always regret how my actions made things so much harder for you.”
“I don’t blame you for anything,” I whispered, my nose stinging.
Mama smiled sadly. “Maybe you should be a little angry with me. I should have chosen you girls over what I thought was love. Because looking back, I’m not even sure it was love, just a young girl infatuated with a handsome man. But I worry you and Iris have never had an example for what real love and marriage look like. Or worse, you won’t be able to recognize it when it’s right in front of you.”
“We turned out okay.”
“You did”—she patted my cheek—“but I feel partly responsible for this whole engagement mess. If I had been a different mother, if I hadn’t had this stroke.” She shrugged. “Life could have been easier for you.”
I sniffled. All these tears the last few days. It’s like I was making up for years of never crying. “I like my life just fine.”
She laughed quietly. “No more lying. Life kind of sucks right now.”
She wasn’t wrong. “I love you, Mama.”
“Love you more.” She gripped my hand. “You’ll have to give the ring back.”
My stomach twisted and I pushed the yogurt away. “Of course. It’s not mine. Not anymore.”
Not that it had ever really been mine.
Later that day, I tortured myself over whether to contact Chris about the ring but, in the end, I chickened out and texted Piper. It was several hours later before she replied.
Piper: The ring is yours to keep. Chris picked it out specifically for you. He said if you needed to sell it, he understood but he hoped you would keep it.
Me: I thought you picked it out.
Piper: Nope. He spent a solid week looking for just the right one. Said it had to be an opal.
Me: I didn’t know.
I slipped the ring back on my finger and allowed myself to sleep with it on for one more night. Then the next morning I carefully stowed it away in my jewelry box for safekeeping.