The Wrong Way to Rock Bottom | UPDATES Fri/Mon

1

"Lissa?"

Oh crap.

I take a moment to steel myself, before standing up and turning to face my mom with a slightly puzzled look; as if she's the weird one for being surprised to find me sitting on the floor. In the dark. In the cellar.

"Hmm?"

"What are you doing in here?" Mom speaks slowly, clearly unsure she wants to hear the answer.

"Oh, just... looking for the olives." I wave my hand around the room, which is barely big enough for the two of us, and holds nothing more than an unreliable light bulb and a few bottles of wine my dad likes to call his "collection".

"They're upstairs. In the fridge." She crosses her arms. "Which you perfectly well know."

"Really?" I force out a laugh. "I didn't even think to look in there. Haha."

In the dim light from the open door, I see her expression soften. "Is this about Jamie?"

Let's think. Is this about Jamie. You mean, the heinous lord of all evil who's probably at this moment flirting with my skanky sister in our backyard?

I can't say that to Mom though. She thinks I'm just holding on to an old grudge. After all, I'm an adult now, and he was my high school boyfriend. But she's wrong. Beneath the grudge, there's a lot of hatred, and under the hatred there's some good old-fashioned spite. So while there are a lot of things waiting upstairs that make this dirty and possibly spider-infested brick cellar suddenly seem very attractive, yeah, he's totally the reason I'm down here.

I'll survive an hour of listening to Aldo and Gina talk about their tax forms. Or Christy's complaints about how underappreciated flight attendants are. Even the fact that Marco ditched me to stay home with his pregnant wife, I can deal with. What I don't think I can handle is seeing the whole DeLuca clan fawning over my ex. Especially today.

My silence must be a dead giveaway, because Mom asks, gently, "Honey, don't you think you're making too big a deal out of this?"

Well, no. I don't.

I try to sound sane and calm, and not like the shrieking banshee voice in my head. "It's just—he's my ex-boyfriend. And this is our day."

It's one of the very few times my birthday happens to land on Mother's Day, including the day I was born. I've mapped out the calendar for the next eighty years and circled all the dates when the second Sunday of May falls on the 8th. Today is special, and I don't want to share it with him.

Mom brushes a little cobweb off my shoulder. "You and Jamie broke up four years ago. Shouldn't you just let bygones be bygones?"

"I'm not sure what that word is, but if it means I say 'bye' to him and he will be 'gone', absolutely." Her face tells me exactly what she thinks of my joke, so I hurry on. "It's just weird, Mom."

I'm getting a sense of déjà vu from this conversation. It's one I've had at least a million times since I got back from my one year self-discovery trip to Europe and discovered that my family had replaced me with my ex-boyfriend. If I'd known they were so easy to win over to the dark side, I might have called a little more often. Now I get to come home from work and look forward to seeing the guy who broke my heart eating my mom's brownies, changing our light bulbs, and playing with Cow.

Even the cat betrayed me.

Mom sighs and wraps me in her insanely toned arms, and I immediately melt into her. I'm 24 as of today, but something tells me I'm never going to get too old for one of her hugs. It makes me feel like I'm a little kid again. Safe and secure.

Which is probably why I let myself mumble, "Why does he have to be here?" like I'm six years old again and Mom's invited the horrible Valerie Simmons to my butterfly-themed party.

Mom pulls back and fixes me with her dark hazel eyes. While I may have inherited the color from her, I've never mastered the level of guilt-tripping tenderness she can fill them with. It makes me feel shamed to the tips of my toes.

Especially when she says, "Lissa. You know why."

She's right. I know exactly why she can't march up there and demand he leave, and the reason outweighs any arguments I could make. I may not like it, but I get it.

Mom pats my cheek, knowing she's won this battle. "Hand me that bottle of Cabernet and let's go upstairs, huh?"

The last thing I want to do is ruin her Mother's Day by sulking. That's the only thing that gives me the courage to plaster on a smile, give my butt a good dust-off, and follow her up the stairs.