Page 100 of Snowed In with Benefits

The last time I had to face somebody who scared me, I had three men standing behind me. I didn’t even have to ask them to be there, they just were, like it was obvious, like there was no version of the story where I walked to the door alone. Now I’m driving across Seattle by myself in my purple sweater and my old jeans and my childish shoes, and there’s nobody in the passenger seat, nobody following me in a truck, nobody waiting at home to ask me how it went. I grip the steering wheel a little tighter and remind myself that I chose this. I chose to come back. I chose to do this alone. I just didn’t realize how much heavier “alone” would feel once I knew what “together” was like.

I back into the driveway beside their three-year-old cars. My heart is pounding. My breath is ragged. I don’t know if I’m ready for this conversation, but that’s why I came right away. That’s what I do now—face things head-on. That’s who I am. Still, I’m shaking hard. I know they’re going to react poorly to me, and I know I’m going to have to stand there and take it, and I don’t know if my new shiny spine is tempered enough to withstand the censure.

I take several deep breaths, then step out of the car. The walk up the drive seems to take forever, with the stained-glass windows on the door glaring at me the whole time. I swallow hard and ring the doorbell, then stand in the cold and wait. Once upon a time, I would have just knocked twice and walked in. But things have changed. I’ve changed. I don’t feel like the same woman who could just walk into her parents’ space like that.

Mom opens the door. Her eyes fly wide and she goes pale with two bright red spots on her cheeks.

“Get in here,” she hisses.

I go inside. The foyer is just as cluttered as always, with brass pots and fake plants and side tables full of expensive and useless tchotchkes. Mom is the same as always too. Perfectly put together, her honey-blonde highlights religiously covering every hair that dares turn gray, her outfit perfectly coordinated like she just stepped out of a magazine. Her sharp brown eyes flash as she marches me into the house.

“Rich! Your daughter is here!”

I wince at that. When I’m his daughter, I know I’m in trouble. Dad comes out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on his pants. His gray-brown hair is thinner than I remember. He gives me a soft look through his wire-rimmed glasses and pulls me into a hug. His broad shoulders are going soft with age. He looks tired. He looks comfortable. He looks like home.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Hi, honey. How are you doing?”

The simplest question, the question Mom wouldn’t have thought to ask, makes my throat tighten.

“I’m okay,” I tell him, and I don’t know how true that is. I’m alive. I’m heartbroken. I’m alone, and so much less alone than I was when I was with Preston. I’m everything. I’m nothing. I’m okay.

“Enough of that,” my mother snaps. “Sit down.”

We all sit down in the living room. The throw pillows are arranged just so, the coffee table books are fanned out in a perfect arc, and there’s a candle burning that smells like something expensive and vaguely seasonal. Everything in this room is for looking at. The couch is stiff because nobody really sits on it, the rug is pristine because nobody walks on it with their shoes on, and the curtains are drawn at exactly the same angle on both sides because symmetry matters more than sunlight. It’s a beautiful room. It’s a room that doesn’t want you to be comfortable in it. It’s my mother in room form, and I never noticed that before.

Mom is sitting in the high-backed chair, her legs crossed, her eyes on fire. Dad sits in his recliner, settling back as if this conversation has nothing to do with him. I guess it sort of doesn’t. He gave up on having his own opinions ages ago, and settles for quietly loving his daughters in the spaces between Mom’s censure and wrath. I guess that’s what drew me to Preston, at first. He loved loudly, if weakly.

“Where have you been?” my mother demands.

“I spent some time in the Cascades,” I tell her vaguely. “I needed to clear my head.”

Mom scoffs, and Dad pinches the bridge of his nose under his glasses, sighing heavily.

“So you just abandoned your wedding to run off to the mountains like some soul-searching hippie?” My mother’s eyes flash with the accusation.

“I—yes.”

Mom presses her thin lips together until they practically disappear. Dad interlaces his fingers over his belly, staring down at them. Confrontation makes him desperately uncomfortable. Guess I had to get it from somewhere.

Mom stares at me. I look back at her evenly, unwilling to give her more than that. I’m not going to go into gruesome detail about the twosomes, threesomes, and foursomes I experienced up on the mountain. I’m not going to tell her that I was in danger of falling for three men that had nothing she would value. I’m certainly not going to tell her that I was crawling around on a sagging barn wielding power tools.

“Well, at least you’re back,” Mom sighs. “Even though it won’t change what happened.”

“What’s happened?” I ask, not really wanting to know.

Mom sniffs. “Preston’s family has cut us off. I don’t know what he told them, but apparently he went to find you and didn’t like what he found. I’m not sure I want to know, frankly, but it might help to mend bridges.”

I shake my head. “It won’t.”

Mom levels me with that stare of hers again, this one more searching than the first. She sighs, softening slightly.

“I see.”

“We missed you,” Dad says into the silence that follows. “We’re glad you’re home.”

“Yes,” Mom sighs. “That’s true. I just—I just wish you hadn’t gone about it that way. If you were unhappy…” She trails off and makes a helpless gesture, then stares at the carpet for a moment.