Love Fast

The staff break room is noticeably fuller at lunchtimes now. I guess once the Club is open, fewer people will be having their lunch at the same time, but while we’re all training, we’re all coming and going at similar times.

There are long dining tables set out like a canteen at one end of the room, with more comfortable seating at the other end, gathered around low tables. Windows stretch along one side of the room, but they’re set in close to the ceiling, so you see out to the treetops and the sky. The room still has a faint smell of fresh paint along with the food everyone’s eating. There’s the odd person reading and a few more scrolling phones, but most people are just chatting.

I take a seat at the long tables with the salad I just grabbed from the kitchen. Eden and Akira are taking calls outside and said they would meet me down here. I’ve gotten familiar with a lot of faces this last week, but I haven’t eaten lunch with anyone apart from the other waitresses I started with.

“Hey, Rosey! Wanna sit with us?” Patricia, one of the waitresses who’s been here from the beginning, calls from the long table closest to the wall. She seems to know everyone here, including all the managers.

A guy I recognize from reception takes the seat Patricia was indicating.

“Thanks,” I mouth. “I’m okay.” Honestly, I’m happy to have a few minutes to myself. I’m used to carving out space in noise and chaos and taking some downtime. Hell, that’s been my life for a long time. We lived on top of each other in the trailer. I would have been driven mad if I hadn’t been able to find a way to create some peace for myself along the way.

I stab at my goat cheese salad when my phone buzzes with the arrival of a text. I know it’s not going to be Byron. He’s so focused on a thousand things when he’s at work, and on top of that he’s got his friends here. That doesn’t stop my heart lifting in my chest at the thought that I might get a message from him. I hold my breath as I pull the phone out of my pocket to check.

My stomach lurches at my youngest sister’s name on my phone.

Shit.

It’s been a couple of weeks since the wedding—since I got on a plane in a white gown and Lydia’s gray hoodie. I’ve been able to block out what’s going on in Oregon for the most part. I’ve been focused on Star Falls: my new job, the storm, Byron. Anything but what I’ve left behind.

After I’ve swallowed my mouthful of salad, I swipe open the message.

I miss you. Mom says we can’t contact you. Don’t tell her I’m messaging you.

I have to fight the urge to call my sister immediately. I don’t want to get Marion into trouble. If someone sees my name flashing up on her screen, it will probably cause a huge argument.

It makes more sense now why I haven’t heard anything from my mom or any of my sisters. Mom has decreed the punishment of silence—an old favorite of hers, probably because it normally works. Before I ran away, being cast out of our family would have been my idea of torture. I went along with things that made Mom happy because I didn’t want to upset the family dynamic—didn’t want to lose her good grace, or my only place in the world.

The difference between when I’ve previously been given Mom’s silent treatment and now is distance, and the little bit of history I’ve carved out over the last few weeks that doesn’t involve her. Memories and experiences where she’s not the center of things.

Maybe it was the understanding that doing what my mom wanted was going to cost me any kind of control over my future that’s allowed me to hold my nerve and stay here. Mom played her hand, dished out my punishment, but it didn’t work this time. The stakes were too high.

I type out a text.

I miss you too, Marion.

I do miss her. But I don’t miss being responsible for her. For our entire family. I feel lighter here in Star Falls, with nothing but possibility in my future. I don’t know how I stuck it out in Oregon as long as I did. Looking back, I don’t understand how as a twenty-eight-year-old woman, I still felt I had to do everything my mother said.

Another text appears almost immediately.

You’re so lucky you escaped.

My heart clenches in hope and pity.

I am lucky. I’m lucky I found Polly Gifford outside the hotel, and even luckier that she was heading to the airport. As I watched myself in the mirror the morning of my wedding, I knew I didn’t want to get married, but I didn’t see a way out. Not until Polly offered me a ride. If it hadn’t been for her, I’d still be in Oregon, either begging forgiveness from my mother or married to Frank. Neither one was a future I wanted.

What happened?

Marion must have hit call right away, as her name flashes up on my phone.

I tuck the cell between my cheek and shoulder and scoop up my salad before heading out for some privacy.

“Hey,” I answer, as I make my way along the corridor to one of the back exits.

“I miss you so much,” she repeats. “Mom’s been a complete monster since you left.”

A dull ache radiates from my stomach. I can only imagine how difficult it’s been.

“I just want to move out, but you know what she’s like.”

“Yup,” I say. She would make us feel so guilty if we even thought about leaving. She seemed to have a sixth sense when any of us were fantasizing about life beyond the trailer. “Could you and Kitty find a place to share together?” I know as I say it, it will feel impossible to Marion. When you’re in it, under Mom’s watchful eye, it’s like being a prisoner. And because we had no experience of our own to compare it to, we accepted it as normal.

I press the exit button and hit the fresh, cold Colorado air. The sky’s blue and the sun’s shining. I don’t know what it is, but the blue sky makes everything feel a little bit more hopeful. I step out onto the gravel that surrounds the main building and lean against the pine shiplap.

She sighs. “I made the mistake of suggesting that to Kitty. She went and told Mom on me.”

Mom used to encourage us to tell on each other, even when we were little. We could win her favor by complaining that someone had smashed a glass or wasted some of the new shampoo. Looking back, it was like a constant war; we were either on Mom’s side against each other, or we were on defense, fighting our way back into her camp.

She was a puppet master. We were just a game to her.

A huge bubble of grief and pity forms in my chest, and I start thinking about ways Marion can escape. And then it becomes obvious. The Colorado Club needs staff. And they’re offering accommodations. All my sisters could come here and get jobs.

But I can’t get the words out.

For some reason, I don’t want to give Marion my escape route. But I want her to find her own.

“Have you thought about what your options could be? What happened to working your way through community college?” Marion was always an excellent student. Looking back, we all had been. But Mom never encouraged college. Instead, she wanted us to go to work as soon as we could. We’re a team, Mom used to say. We all had to play our parts and contribute as soon as we’d left school. Boyfriends were strongly discouraged. Mom had her eyes on the prize, and the prize was her daughters providing her with an income.

“There’s no way she’s going to let me go to community college.” I want to say, you’re an adult, Marion. You can make your own decisions, but I don’t because I know it won’t help. Even if she knows it’s true, it won’t feel like she has the power or control. I know because I lived it.

“Do you have to tell her?”

“I wouldn’t be able to hide it. I’d have to study and⁠—”

“You could study in the library,” I say. “Do they have lockers at community college? You could just keep everything there.”

Silence comes from the other end of the phone.

“It seems impossible, right?” I ask.

“Right.”

I know that feeling.

“Could I come and stay with you?”

I exhale. The old me would have said yes right away. I would have seen it as my duty to look after Marion. “Let me think about it. I’m not really set up at the moment. It’s not like I have a place for you to stay. And⁠—”noveldrama

“I’ll pay my way. You know I’m a hard worker.”

“It’s not that,” I say. “It’s more that I want you to find your own path out. I want to help you. But you can’t just do what I’m doing. You have to create your own future. Your dream is community college. Let’s try and figure out a way for you to do that.”

She sighs. I know how hopeless she feels. Like there’s no way out. Like she’s trapped. I’ve been there. But somehow I found a way. Marion will too, especially if I help.

“You should look at scholarships,” I say. “Maybe you should think about a college that would offer financial assistance for your room and board.”

“What? You think I should apply to Harvard or something?”

“You made good grades. Did the guidance counselor not talk to you about applying anywhere?”

“Once or twice. She thought I should apply to the University of Oregon. She thought I had a good shot at a full scholarship.”

“But you didn’t apply?” I ask.

“Mom said I’d end up in a ton of debt, with the same job I’d have without a college degree.”

My heart breaks a little more. Shouldn’t a mother encourage her child’s dreams, rather than focus only on herself? I wasted so much time trying to please a woman who didn’t see me as a human. Just someone to serve her.

“Mom would say that.”

“She’s got a point. College isn’t meant for everyone.”

“But you’re not everyone—you’re you. College is made for people like you. Hell, I would have liked to have gone to college.” I say it without thinking, but it’s true. I got good grades. I never even considered college because I knew Mom expected me to get a full-time job as soon as possible. A future other than one she’d planned never even occurred to me.

“You used to love poetry, didn’t you?” she asks.

I’d spend hours in the library creating poems. I mentioned going to college for English to my mom once and she’d just laughed. I didn’t bring it up again.

“Yeah. But I gave it up. I shouldn’t have. Mom isn’t going to support you, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t apply to college. And you have nothing to lose. The worst that happens is you apply and don’t get in.”

“But Mom would be so mad.”

“She won’t ever have to know.” I remember something Byron said to me. “Let’s not borrow trouble. I can help you apply and then we can see what happens.”

“You’d help?” There’s a lift to her voice.

“Of course. And we have some time,” I say. “Deadlines are nine months away. Why don’t you go back and see the guidance counselor at school? I bet she’d help you, or knows someone who could. I can help you put together a plan and we’ll keep it between the two of us.”

“Mom won’t find out?”

“Believe it or not, she’s not a mind reader. You need to make sure you don’t tell the others. Keep it to the two of us.”

“But what would happen if I actually got in somewhere? Would I just move away?”

“You were ready to come stay with me.”

“Mom would kill me.”

“Not if you went out of state. You’d be too far for her to reach.”

“But she really does need the money.”

I swallow. There’s no doubt Mom doesn’t have a lot, but that isn’t Marion’s fault. There’s no reason Mom can’t get a job and start supporting herself. The realization that I own the trailer dawns on me. I need to find a way to transfer it back to Frank. It was a wedding present for a wedding that never took place. I can’t possibly keep it. “I know she doesn’t,” I say. I want to tell Marion it’s not our responsibility to financially support our mother, but I’m not even sure I believe that. “If you got a great degree at a fancy university, imagine what a great job you’d get. You’d be able to support her much more in the long term.”

“That’s true,” she says.

“But you gotta keep this secret. And don’t tell anyone you spoke to me either.”

Marion agrees she’s going to research who can help her identify scholarships and colleges, we say our I love yous, and hang up.

I’m exhausted. I gaze up. It’s a Colorado sky I’m looking at, not an Oregon one. But Oregon feels closer to home than it has since I got here. Darkness settles over my heart like a cloud passing across the sun. I left Oregon in a wedding dress because I didn’t want to get married, but what I really escaped wasn’t Frank—it was my mother.

All the cuts and bruises from a lifetime there have been brought back by my conversation with Marion. My body aches. I feel the bruises on my soul. But this Colorado air is helping them heal.

Maybe helping Marion will help me too. I might have gotten out of Oregon, but there are some things I need to face before I can truly escape.

The first is transferring the trailer back into Frank’s name. I just don’t know how to start the process.

Probably with a call to Frank.

It feels like I’ve kept Oregon at bay for as long as possible, and now it’s seeping in at the sides. I need to face it—clean up the mess I left. Be the adult I’ve been waiting to become.