Page 38 of Be With Me
MIA
Today was one of my stepmom’s bad days. She greeted me with her cane in hand—the one she hated using. She only reached for it when the muscle stiffness was particularly rough.
Normally, the three of us had breakfast together on Saturday mornings, but today, my dad had a meeting, which meant it was just Aris and me.
They lived in a beautiful prewar building on the Upper East Side, right across from the Met. Stepping into the lobby always felt like stepping back in time—black-and-white checkered floors, gold-plated elevator doors, the kind of place where the doormen knew every tenant’s name. Their apartment had three bedrooms, two baths, a small office, an even smaller kitchen, and an extravagantly large living room where my stepmom spent most of her days. She’d curl up on the sofa with a book or spend hours on the phone with one of her sisters in California.
For four years after boarding school, I reclaimed my childhood bedroom. But three years ago, I moved out.
I told them it was to be closer to my studio, because the real reason made me feel like a terrible daughter: I needed space from the oppressive weight of this place.
I made us breakfast, and we ate in silence at the dining table.
“Are you sure you don’t want some more eggs?” I nudged the dish toward Aris. “They’re good, aren’t they?”
She sat across from me, wrapped in the robe I bought her for Christmas last year—one of the few gifts from me she actually seemed to like.
“I’m full.”
“You barely ate anything.”
“I don’t need you to micromanage my meals for me, Mia. I said I’m done.” She pushed her plate away. “Get my iPad from the bedroom. I want to check my email.”
I bit on the inside of my cheek. I still didn’t know how to handle her bad moods. They made me feel like a little girl again. A little girl who secretly wondered if her dad and stepmom had sent her away to boarding school because she’d done something wrong.
When she got like this, it felt like I was drowning in guilt.
What happened to her wasn’t my fault. I knew that. But it never stopped me from feeling like I owed her something.
She and my dad got married two years after my mom died. They immediately started trying to have a baby, but nothing happened. After a year, they turned to IVF.
It was around the same time my dad sat me down and told me I was being sent abroad.
He never said it outright, but I know part of the reason was due to my stepmom. My dad worked late most nights, so she was the one who took care of school pickups and drop-offs. The one who shuttled me to my after-school activities. The one who filled the space my mom left behind.
But we never bonded. She wasn’t cruel, but I always had the sense that she tolerated my presence more than she enjoyed it.
Being sent off to Switzerland only strengthened that feeling.
The IVF journey ended years later when she had a stroke—triggered, apparently, by the years of hormone treatments. I was finishing high school when it happened. My dad missed my graduation. I didn’t blame him.
Afterward, he asked me to come back to New York for college instead of going to Milan, where I’d been accepted into Istituto Marangoni. He said he could use my help taking care of her.
I agreed without hesitation. I’d also gotten into FIT’s fashion styling program in New York, so I could still pursue my career goals while being closer to them.
A part of me had hoped it would allow us to bond. That it would make the three of us feel like a real family.
“Mia?” Her sharp voice cut through my thoughts. “Did you hear me?”
I met her dark-brown eyes. “Sorry. I’ll go get it, Aris.”
In the bedroom, her iPad sat on the nightstand next to a framed photo of her and my father. It was taken before the stroke, when she was still optimistic that she and my dadwould have the big family they wanted.
But it never happened.
I was their only daughter. And there were no pictures of me in their room.
Oh, come on. Don’t you think you’re reading too much into it?
