Chapter 4 - The Woman at the Gate
We all turned.
A woman was coming through the side gate with a big striped beach bag on her shoulder.
Ashley went stone still.
I knew her right away. Ashley's mother, Carol. Seventy-one years old.
And she was wearing a swimsuit. Not under a sundress. Not tucked beneath a cover-up. A bright canary-yellow one-piece, out in the open for God and everybody.
She raised both arms over her head. "Surprise!"
Nobody said a word.
Ashley looked like she was praying for the patio to open up and swallow her whole.
Carol lowered her arms, frowning. "Well. That's a heck of a welcome."
Then she spotted my towel. "Gloria, honey, why are you all bundled up like it's November?"
I looked at Ashley. So did everyone else.
Carol's eyes moved from me to her daughter and back. "Did I walk in on something?"
"No," Ashley said fast.
"Yes," Sophie said.
"Sophie."
Carol raised an eyebrow. "Now I'm interested."
For years I'd believed that keeping the peace in a family sometimes meant swallowing a little pride and letting things go. But Ashley had shamed me in front of everyone I loved and then called it a favor. I wasn't going to cover for her on top of that.
"Ashley decided my swimsuit wasn't appropriate," I said.
Carol looked at the towel. "What's wrong with it?"
I untied it and let it drop over a chair. The black one-piece, plain as a paper bag.
Carol stared. "That's it?"
"That's it."
She turned to her daughter. "What in the world is inappropriate about that?"
Ashley pressed her fingers to her forehead. "Can we please just drop it?"
Sophie answered, bright as ever. "Mom said Grandma's got wrinkles everywhere and the teenagers don't want to look at them."
The patio went quiet again.
Carol looked down at herself. At her arms. At her legs. Seventy-one years old, and her body showed every one of those years.
She looked back at Ashley. "Interesting."
"Mom. Don't."
"No, I'd like to understand the rules." She stuck out one arm. "I've got wrinkles too. Should I go home?"
"Of course not."
"Should I cover up?"
"No."
"Why not?"
Ashley's face was burning. "Because you're my mother."
Carol's eyebrows went up. "And Gloria is Greg's mother."
Nobody spoke. Ashley looked cornered by her own words.
"I wasn't trying to insult anybody," she said.
"You told a sixty-eight-year-old woman that nobody wants to see her body." Carol glanced at the row of teenagers by the pool. "Any of you complain about Gloria's swimsuit?"
Heads shook. One boy said, "No, ma'am."
Another one said, "We weren't even looking."
That stung in the best possible way. Of course they weren't. Nobody had thought twice about my arms until Ashley stood up and announced they were a problem.
Carol set her beach bag on the table. "You want to know why I've got this suit on?"
Ashley sighed. "Because you came to swim?"
"Because you bought it for me."
I looked at Ashley. So did Greg.
Ashley blinked. "What?"
"Mother's Day," Carol said, no humor in it at all. "You told me the yellow made me look ten years younger."
Something shifted in Ashley's face. "I forgot."
"I didn't." Carol waved a hand at the suit. "You told me to quit hiding under those big baggy shirts. You said I'd earned the right to enjoy myself."
Ashley said nothing.
"So which version of you am I supposed to believe?"
That landed harder than any insult could have.
Nobody was smiling now. This had stopped being funny. Ashley had been caught holding one rule for her own mother and a completely different one for me.
Greg shook his head slowly. "Ashley. You owe my mother an apology."
"I know."
May you like
She turned to me. "I'm sorry."
I waited.
