Favourite Daughter. Kaira Rouda Sturdivant

I dropped some of my best refrains there.

      “Mom.” She shakes her head no, but she knows I’m right. “Time for you to go.”

      I reach out to her, pull her into a hug. She’s stiff, but she doesn’t push away. I’m glad she trusts me, at least a little. We stand for a moment, locked in a comforting embrace. She’s a good girl at heart.

      She breaks the hug, but I slip my hand around her wrist. Holding her tight. Just a little reminder of who is boss. Then I notice a new tattoo on the inside of her left wrist, her Mary tattoo is on her right. I smile and grab her left hand, holding it in the air.

      “What’s that? On your wrist?” My tone is too sharp. I force a smile.

      Betsy shakes free, steps back from me, recovering her composure, pulling her sleeve down, covering her hand. “It’s an infinity symbol. You know, eternity, empowerment, everlasting love.”

      “You didn’t have my permission to mark yourself again.” This is totally unacceptable. The next thing you know, she’ll be covered in those awful things.

      “It’s tiny. I’ve had it for months and you didn’t even know. So chillax.” She stares into my eyes until I look away.

      Defiant daughters are the worst. “You’ll be sorry, later. When you’re old and saggy.”

      She arches her eyebrows. I know she’s thinking about adding, “Like you, Mom.” But I’m neither. So she smiles instead and says, “FYI, I’m meeting some friends after the lame ceremony tomorrow night. We’re planning a few surprises for senior day, and graduation night. I’ll be home late.” Betsy arches an eyebrow. “No need to stalk me.” A challenge.

      I meet her eyes and she laughs. She’s teasing me, of course, not laughing at me. She’s eighteen years old. I can’t stop her from doing what she wants and I have other people to stalk right now. “Just be smart.”

      “I am smart, Mom, even if you don’t think so.”

      “Oh, don’t be silly. I love you.” I’m a master at dodging her, you see. I try hard not to compare her to Mary, but it’s not easy. Mary was brilliant. Beautiful. Oh well. I walk out of the room in silence, pull her door closed behind me and make my way to the stairs. My heart thumps from the tension between us, a tension that only develops when two people love each other deeply. There’s no deeper bond than a mother and a daughter. Betsy knows that, too. She’s just having a little phase.

      Upstairs in the kitchen, I pull the bottle of chardonnay back out from its hiding spot behind the orange juice and vanilla almond milk and pour a full glass. I’ve limited myself to one glass a night lately, but tonight is a celebration. I’m proud of my self-control. My liver thanks me, too. Right after Mary died—well, for months after—it was a different story. But now we try to move on.

      Some of us have.

      In the living room I twist the knob and the fireplace bursts to life. I sit on one of the two overstuffed cream couches that face each other framing the fire. I never dreamed I would live anywhere like The Cove, let alone in a multimillion-dollar, beach-chic soft contemporary. But as I look around, that is where I am. It’s too bad my mom couldn’t see me now, surrounded by all the luxury money can buy. And soon, we’ll move to an even grander home, 1972 Port Chelsea Place. A happy address. I wonder if there’s an ocean view from the second floor of the new house?

      I take a big gulp and finish my wine as I stare at the flames leaping in the fireplace. It was a warm day in May, more than a year ago now, when David and I were driving to Los Angeles to help Mary pack up her dorm room, a task I was dreading. I mean, a kid’s dorm room after a full year of college is about the least sanitary place on earth. But there we were, David and I, on a mission together.

      “I have a great idea.” I had tapped David’s arm, as if I’d just come up with the idea. I wanted to understand why he had broken his promise to me and allowed Mary to connect with her birth mother. I thought tequila and sex could help me extract an answer. “Let’s go to Cabo for the weekend! Reconnect.”

      “You think that’s what we need? To reconnect?” David answered, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, focused on the 405 North.

      “I do.” My voice was warm, happy. Inviting. I missed him, us. I missed our family, how it had been. I wanted everyone to be close again. And it started with David.

      “And why, exactly, would we go to Cabo now when Mary’s coming home from college today?” He turned up the radio. End of discussion. Tears filled my eyes and I blinked them away. But the betrayal, the hurt? You don’t just blink that away. Those feelings sit at the bottom of your heart, festering.

      Once we’d finally packed up her despicable dorm room, Mary took us on a walk around campus.

      “Next year I live in that house. Can you believe it?” she gushed as we walked down 29th Street, otherwise known as The Row. The impressive Southern-style Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority house, complete with Doric columns and window boxes bursting with red geraniums, was intimidating to me. I couldn’t imagine living in one house with all those women.

      “It looks nice, but not as nice as home. I can’t wait to have you back for the summer.” I slid my arm through hers. She stiffened, or was it my imagination?

      David wrapped his arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him, leaving me to walk alone on the sidewalk. Typical.

      He said, “This sorority thing will cost me an arm and a leg, that’s all I know.” He pretended to complain but he loved every moment of Mary’s joy, of Mary’s college life. And living vicariously through her social acceptance. A daughter who is a member of the top USC sorority meant good connections for David’s investment business. “Proud of you as always, kiddo.”

      “Thanks, Dad. I can’t wait for next year. But, of course, it will be fun to be home for a couple weeks, too.”

      “A couple of weeks?” I’d asked. My heart hammered in my chest. She had all summer to be home with us.

      “I got a killer internship here. So I’ll come home for a bit and then head back up to LA. My friend has a place I can crash. It’s all worked out perfectly.”

      This was new. “You said you’d be home. That you’d work, save up.” My old-fashioned, came-from-nothing work ethic was shining through.

      Mary leaned against me. “I know, Mom. But I’m premed. Dad agrees it is a great idea and it is an amazing opportunity with a hospital. I’ll be working with patients and I’ve been offered a research position. It’s important for my résumé, for med school.”

      “It’s with her? Elizabeth James? Isn’t it?” They were teaming up against me, again. Tears stung my eyes. Mary had found her birth mother, a woman who was now a leading plastic surgeon in LA. She had agreed to work with her, spend all summer with her.

      “Just drop it, Jane. This is a great opportunity for Mary,” David had commanded. The liar. The cheater.

      Looking back now, I realize what I had done wrong. I allowed Mary to go away to college, to leave my orbit, and she went awry. Stupid amateur mistake, but she was my first child, so I didn’t realize the pull of college life. I never had the desire for more school, for that fake sorority experience, for the liberal arts degree that leads you nowhere. At her age, I had a career to launch, a future to secure.

      And no money. There was that, too. So, sue me. I slipped and let Mary go to USC. A huge mistake.

      Once Mary was away, David strayed. It was all because of Mary’s choices. She disobeyed me, disrespected me and caused chaos in our family. I won’t make that mistake again. I’ll keep Betsy close to me, one way or another. I’ve learned my lesson.

      That day, in the car, I did as David commanded and dropped it. I didn’t say another word, not on the entire drive back home. I was so furious I don’t remember where we had lunch. The effects of betrayal are deep, and lasting, especially when you are harmed by the people you love the most.