You'll Never Know

by Katie Cross

  “That’s nice.”

  I cleared my throat. “Sophia, the owner, sent a few cupcakes home for you if you want to try them.”

  Her head perked up. “That was nice of her,” she said, infused with new energy. “What flavors?”

  My heart took a dive. Why won’t you see me? Why do you only see food? I swallowed and reached for the bag, extracting a white box from it. When I pushed it toward her, her eyes expanded.

  “Soda flavors,” I said. “Coke. Pepsi. Fanta. Sprite. You like Sprite, don’t you? Sophia and I came up with the recipes over the past couple of weeks.”

  Mom’s eyes gleamed as I opened the box, revealing the delicious pastries inside, but she schooled the expression into one of casual indifference. She looked away but peered at them from the corner of her eye.

  “Sounds yummy.”

  I reached in and pulled out the Sprite cupcake, drizzled with yellow-and-green sprinkles on top of a pillowy white frosting. “Do you want to try it? Maybe we could cut it in half and split it? I only tried a small sample.”

  “No.”

  Her quick reply, almost a snap, startled me. I blinked.

  “Oh.”

  “I just … I’m not hungry right now.”

  She turned back to her sausage. The cloying scent of burnt meat filled the air as she whipped it around the greasy pan. Then she dumped a bowl of whipped eggs into the mess. They sizzled and jumped around on the hot skillet, filling the gaps between the sausage.

  “Oh. Right. Okay.” I set the cupcake back inside. “It was really fun, actually. I made and frosted these cupcakes.”

  “That’s nice.”

  See me! I wanted to scream. See anything but your food!

  With a deep breath, I silenced the little girl screaming inside of me. “Thanks. I’ve really enjoyed working there.”

  “Good.”

  Another pause. Mom stirred the eggs and sausage with almost frantic flicks of her wrists, her eyes darting to the box every so often. I took it to the fridge and set it inside, cognizant that she was discreetly monitoring my every move. Why wouldn’t she eat the cupcake? She wouldn’t even touch it. Acknowledge it.

  Desperation fueled my next breath. The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them.

  “Mom, is there a reason you won’t try the cupcake?”

  “I’m on a diet.”

  My brow furrowed. “Really?”

  She scraped at the pan with renewed frenzy. “Yes.”

  “Then I’ll just throw them out.”

  “No!”

  Rage bubbled under my skin. So it was me. It was me she didn’t want to eat the cupcakes with. She wanted the cupcake, just not with me. I turned away, nostrils flaring. Tears pricked at my eyes. This wasn’t even a new feeling of pain. I realized with a wash of bitterness that I’d felt this rejection before. All the dance recitals she missed. My high school graduation. Every event a parent could possibly be expected to attend—and she never did.

  “Why don’t we ever talk about my grandparents. Your … parents?” I asked, whipping back around to face her. “Why? Why don’t we talk about them? Is it because Grandpa was controlling? Did he do something awful to you?”

  She froze in the middle of shutting off the stovetop. “My parents?” she whispered. All the color drained from her face.

  “What did they do that was so awful?”

  Her shoulders slumped. She swallowed heavily. The long folds of her robe—her mussed, greasy hair puffed out on one side—meant she hadn’t changed since yesterday. Had she even gone to bed last night? The low drone of Matlock played like a dull, vapid ghost in the background. Maybe she hadn’t gone to bed. There had been many times I’d woken up to go to the bathroom and found her there, sleeping on the couch.

  She pressed her lips together. “There’s nothing to say.” She lifted the pan with a grimace—she’d been standing too long—and dumped the eggs onto a waiting plate. The food filled it entirely, some spilling off the sides.

  “Nothing at all?” I pressed.

  “No.”

  “Are they still alive?”

  She still didn’t face me, the greasy spatula in her hand as she dumped mango salsa onto the fluffy eggs. “No.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  I leaned against the counter, attempting an unaffected response. But I couldn’t hide the pain in my voice. “Can you tell me more about them? Give me something about my family that I can understand?”

  “Why?” she muttered.

  If the tension in the room grew any tighter, the air would shatter. Coffee ran into my favorite mug in a stream from the coffeemaker. I ignored it.

  “They’re my family, too, aren’t they?”

  “They shouldn’t be anyone’s family.”

  “Why not?”

  She shook her head in a determined back-and-forth.

  “What happened? Why won’t you ever talk about them?”

  “Leave it alone!” she snapped. The smell of burnt sausage filled the air. The toaster popped. On autopilot, she buttered two pieces of bread and tore into both with a savage bite. She dropped them on top of the eggs.

  Was her inability to look in my eyes new? Did she never look at me? I could see myself at sixteen, silently begging her to catch me while I snuck boys into my room. See me, I could imagine myself saying. Please see me.

  For a moment, I was stuck in a memory. Teenage Rachelle trying to talk to Mom while she fixed dinner. Screaming. Crying. Mom’s stony, rigid face. I jerked out of it with a shudder.

  Pockets of pain.

  How could I say what I felt without giving her a heart attack? Would Mom panic? Would she scream? No, Mom didn’t scream. She just retreated. Fell back into that shell where she saw nothing, not even me.

  “I started therapy, Mom.”

  The sentence fell out of my mouth like gunfire. Fast. Heavy. A weighty staccato. Mom blinked. Her forehead creased into deep grooves that reminded me of garden furrows.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m messed up. I need help. Sometimes I feel like I’m out of control and…”

  She stared at her plate.

  “Okay.”

  My heart tingled like a hot breath of fire. “I … I just wanted you to know. I didn’t know if you’d care or…”

  “I hope it works.”

  She grabbed her plate, turned, and moved toward the couch without a word. The fire built in my chest, dancing with long tongues of rage. I followed just behind her, hobbling with only one crutch.

  “Don’t you see?” I cried, tears thick in my voice. “I’m messed up! I need help. I’ve been crying out for help since I was a little girl, and you didn’t do anything. Just like now. You’re not saying anything!”

  The words rolled out like thunder. She stopped only a few steps away, her wide robe swaying with every movement. Her nostrils flared. I held my breath. Would she actually say something? Would she be angry, or frustrated, or at least feel betrayed? Yelling would be far preferable to this toneless silence.

  She started walking again with a clenched jaw. Then it all slipped away when she grabbed the remote and fell behind her glass mask like a light switch. On. Off.

  Desperation surged through me. I stormed after her.

  “Mom!”

  “What?”

  “Say something! Please. I beg you.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Don’t you care? Don’t you care that I hated myself my whole life? That I tried hard to be anyone but me? All the costumes. The outlandish attitude. The sheer amount of food?”

  She barreled now, moving fast. “I’m not talking about this.”

  “But I want to.”

  “No!”

  She sank into the couch and held the plate up to her chin, obscuring my view of her face. She jabbed angrily at the remote.

  “Mom!”

  “Stop it, Rachelle!” she barked. When she turned to me, terror filled her eyes. “There’s no reaso
n to visit the past. No reason to get into this. I won’t do it.”

  “It makes the present better!”

  “The present couldn’t get any worse!”

  Her voice had turned shrill. A piece of toast fell off the plate. She let out a riotous shriek, snatching it as it dropped. She turned back to the remote and flipped through channels at a frenetic speed. I strode across the room, reached for the plug, and yanked it from the wall. The TV faded to a gray screen, then black. A strange silence followed. When had I last heard nothing in this house?

  Maybe never.

  Her breathing grew heavier until it was almost a pant.

  “I need your help,” I whispered. “I can’t move past this on my own. I can’t learn to love myself if I don’t have the truth. If I don’t know what happened. Where I came from. Why you … “

  Why you don’t see me.

  Her voice was gravelly when she said, “Plug it back in.”

  “Did you hear me? Can you just see me instead of the TV for once?”

  “Plug. It. Back. In.”

  “Mom … please.”

  The seething, low rage in her voice frightened me. ”Go away,” she growled. “Leave me in what little peace I can find.”

  I paused, feeling my heart shrink, crinkling like wax paper.

  When I didn’t move, her face screwed up in wrinkled concentration. She set aside her plate and fork. With a grunt, she pushed up off the couch. The ratty fabric of her robe hung around her as she waddled toward me. Her bent body seemed to have taken the shape of the couch. I swallowed, tears in my eyes, as she ripped the cord from my hand and plugged the TV back in, nearly falling down in the attempt. A blast of noise filled the room.

  Mom worked her way back to the couch, breathless.

  Tears filled my eyes. I stepped back, Bitsy’s voice whirling through my mind. You’re learning how to live as you. That’s worth all the pain. Trust me, Rachelle. You’re doing the right thing, no matter how much you question it.

  “There are reasons to go into the past,” I whispered. “I’m tired of hating myself. I wish you were, too.”

  I retreated to my bedroom and slammed my door. Then I dropped to my bed, stuffed earplugs in my ears, and covered my head with a pillow until I couldn’t hear anything but the sound of my own breathing.

  Murky dreams and restless sleep consumed me that night.

  I spun in and out of wild memories. Mom and I in the kitchen together, eating everything we could fit into our mouths. Then Dad stepped into the picture in a red cloud, his voice booming. Mom shrank away like a minion obeying her taskmaster. I woke up in the middle of the night, shaking.

  By the time the sun crept into the sky, I was wide awake, staring at the textured shadows on my ceiling. The sound of breakfast dishes clanking roused me from a stupor. The red numbers on my clock glowed a bright 5:15. Maybe Mom had been up all night after our argument.

  I wondered if the cupcakes were still there.

  At work, I didn’t speak. I popped earbuds in and surrendered myself to the task. Cupcake after cupcake came out of the oven, following by swirling piles of frosting. Glitter. Sprinkles. Extracts. All the measurements put me into a lane, and I ran.

  And ran.

  I ran away from the simmering rage. The pain. The betrayal. The dark cloak of abandonment that rested heavy on my back. Until I arrived at Janine’s that evening, I acted like it wasn’t there. Like my heart didn’t thud heavily every single second.

  Margery greeted me with a smile. “Good to see you again, Rachelle.”

  “Hey, Margery.” I paused in front of the desk. “I still haven’t been billed. Is it…”

  “All taken care of still.” Her grin widened. “Don’t even worry about it.”

  My brow wrinkled. Of course I worried about it. But I couldn’t question her further because Janine beckoned for me. I hobbled into her office, sank into her couch, and stared at her.

  “I will never talk to her again,” I whispered.

  Janine’s eyes widened. “Well,” she said. “There’s a story waiting to be told. What happened?”

  Relieved, I related the whole conversation in full. Fury kept my emotions in check—not a single tear threatened to escape. By the time I finished, Janine blinked.

  “Certainly intense,” she murmured.

  “You’re telling me.”

  Janine spread her hands. “I’m going to give you a little tough love here, Rachelle. You’re changing your life, and your mom isn’t. Welcome to being an adult. It’s not your responsibility what other people do or say.”

  “If she tells me nothing, then there will always be unanswered questions. That’s not fair!”

  “What if your mom died right now?”

  “Um…”

  “Your ability to have peace has nothing to do with external factors. Happiness doesn’t come from food, connection with your mom, running marathons, or losing weight. It comes from within you.”

  My eyes stung like a thousand needles pierced them. I longed to pace. Instead, I balled my hands into fists. Janine tilted her head to the side.

  “What do you control, Rachelle?”

  “Me,” I mumbled.

  “You could forgive her.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Right now you’re in pain. Of course it feels like it’s too much, but forgiveness is the path out of this.”

  I reared back. “Whoa! Are you kidding? Forgiveness is the last thing on my mind.”

  “The power of compassion and forgiveness to bring you peace cannot be understated.”

  “She shut me out, remember? She ignored me. She values television more than her daughter. Don’t you think she should be asking for it?”

  “You don’t have to wait for her.”

  “She’s never going to ask.”

  “You’re likely right. But not extending forgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping your mother feels the effects.”

  “I never said I wanted poison,” I muttered.

  “Holding onto this anger is like that. We need to dig into the source of your pain and root it out.”

  I looked away, arms folded across my chest. “I don’t know how.”

  “You feel.”

  “Feel?”

  “Yes. Whatever negative emotions you have, you feel them. Give them space and air. Sit with them for a minute. Then let them go. That’s all emotions want. Acknowledgment. Isn’t that all you wanted?”

  I let those thoughts brew for a moment. They seeped through my mind like hot tea. What lingered beneath the surface was terrifying. There was anger and pain and betrayal. Darkness. Agony. Confusion. Uncertainty. I struggled for the right words as they crept closer to the surface.

  “Those don’t feel good.”

  “No.” She laughed a little. “They don’t. Of course, you could tuck them away, allow them to fester and sabotage your life the way they have been. The fallacy is that you think you need exercise or food or control to deal with your emotions. You don’t. All you need to do is acknowledge, feel, let go, and forgive.”

  “But my way is so much easier!”

  “Is it?”

  Her direct challenge caught me by surprise. When I backtracked and thought of all the self-hatred, the days that I’d wanted to be someone else, the times that I’d feared I couldn’t deal with life, I realized I was wrong. In the end, it wasn’t easier to rely on food. Or even exercise. Years of Mom seeing only the television stood behind me. The weight of that lifetime would surely crush my heart. Tears filled my eyes.

  “I’m not ready,” I whispered.

  “What will help you be?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m not now.”

  I picked up my crutch, stood, and fled the office with tears streaming down my face.

  “Rachelle? Hello? Are you with us still?”

  I jerked out of my thoughts to find Bitsy snapping her fingers in front of my face. Mira stared at me, her brow ruffled.

  “You okay, honey?”
she asked.

  “Fine.” I cleared my throat. “Sorry, did I miss something?”

  “It’s your turn,” Lexie said from the computer. “We just finished reviewing our week.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I spaced out and missed it.”

  “I’m going to a family reunion with Bradley’s extended family tonight,” Lexie said. “Supposedly it’s a huge family tradition. My mother-in-law has been baking pies for the last week to prepare for it and is super stressed out. They’re expecting three hundred people, and all of them can’t wait to meet the new bride.” She fake gagged. “Yikes.”

  Megan held up a hand. “No more moose attacks.”

  Mira said, “I have a sewing convention in the morning. Leaving around four so I can get there in time. Can’t wait!”

  “And I’m taking the girls to visit my father in Chicago tonight,” Bitsy said. “We’ll only be gone for four days.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath and shook my head, freeing the thoughts that clung to me like heavy tentacles. “Okay,” I said. “Sorry to force the recap. My turn? Uh … it was a … week.”

  The words nearly choked me. Megan frowned. Lexie bit her bottom lip. Only Bitsy raised an eyebrow, more curious than worried. I kept going, unable to bear their silent questioning.

  “Ah, the sales are going great at the Frosting Cottage. I’ve been working twelve-hour days the past four days. Orders are pouring in, so that feels good. Tomorrow is a big day. Five consultations for Sophia, which means I have to help her with cakes and still keep up with the store supply. William is doing a gig I promised I’d go see tomorrow night. That’s pretty much it.”

  “What about—” Lexie started, but I cut her off.

  “No.”

  She nodded once. “Okay.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it. When I looked away, I could feel all their eyes on me.

  “I’m done,” I said. “Nothing more to report.”

  “Great.” Bitsy clapped once. “Sounds like everyone is busy this weekend, so we’ll keep this meeting short. Make sure to eat intuitively while you’re out, all of you. I sent an email to everyone with a new recipe. Try it out this week. Tell me what you think of the brown rice noodles. Interesting twist.”

  Unable to bear it, I stood up and left the room with one crutch. Outside, the air had cooled into a merely sweltering evening, but even the stuffy air felt better than Bitsy’s small house. I stood on her porch and closed my eyes, getting lost in the chorus of crickets. Not even a minute later, the back door opened with a groan.