Grace Grows Read Free Page A

and inexhaustibly determined to win, and no matter what I choose from the menu, she’ll try to talk me into something else just for kicks.
    “Sorry,” I shrugged.
    She rolled her eyes and ordered for us when the waiter came.
    “So, how is Steven?” She pushed her hair back again, and her silver bracelets jingled. My mother is beautiful, fifty going on thirty, always flawlessly turned out, whether dressed to prosecute, or as today, to persecute (kidding!), in jeans and sweater and boots.
    “He’s good. Still going to Munich and D.C. a lot.”
    “Well, that doesn’t sound too bad. Actually, kind of perfect, don’t you think?”
    For my mom, men were a troubling necessity. She resented her attraction to them but was practical about it. We needed their sperm and their willingness to wet-vac a flooded basement, and they wanted things from us that we could trade for those commodities.
    She radiated approval, however, when we talked about Steven. She didn’t care that he was divorced and almost ten years older than me, she just loved that he was a patent attorney for a major pharmaceutical corporation. I know I’m making her sound mercenary, but this is one of the ways I know my mother loves me, her excitement over my potentially secure future.
    I told her something next that I thought would really thrill her.
    “How are you putting that much of your paycheck into your 401K? What about your rent?”
    “Steven pays the mortgage.”
    “But you pay half, yes?”
    “I tried at first, but he tore up my checks. He says it’s not fair because it’s his place, and we’re not married yet, and he doesn’t need my help. So I pay the utilities and buy the groceries and bank the rest.”
    “But you are getting married, aren’t you?”
    “Maybe. We’re going to evaluate when we’ve been living together for a year.”
    “When will that be? Spring?”
    “April.”
    My mom shook her head.
    “What’s the problem?” I asked.
    “I’m trying to decide.” The food came, and she picked bits of green chili out of her beef curry with the tines of her fork and piled them on the edge of the dish. “On one hand, I think it’s great you have the opportunity to save, in case things don’t work out with him. But decent, secure housing is the foundation of a lasting relationship. If you help pay the mortgage, he will subconsciously value you more when it comes time to consider getting married.”
    As usual at our monthly luncheon I was developing heartburn, and I had yet to take a bite of my chili shrimp. “Does everything have to be so calculated?”
    My mom set her fork down and leaned over her plate toward me. “Grace. Do you remember your childhood?”
    “Yes.”
    “I don’t know if you actually do. We struggled.”
    “I know.”
    “I’m just saying you should keep your eyes open and think ahead. If I had done that, things might not have been so bad for us.”
    “They weren’t so bad, Mom.”
    She picked up her knife and fork and diced up a chunk of curried beef. “You’re sweet.”
    “Mom, what’s the big deal about marriage? You did it once and it sucked, right?”
    “Not until the surprise ending. And you’re going to be smarter about it than I was. Look at it as a business arrangement, Grace. Strategize.”
    She was loving me, in her way. And I felt sorry for the painful things that had hardened her. Still, I took a moment to do that thing I’ve done a million times since I was thirteen. I smiled and nodded at what she was saying. And silently, effusively thanked God or The Heavens or Whomever that I was not like her.
    Saturday, and I was headed for the Cloisters. The gardens would be barren now, but I could be alone for a while and soak up the quiet. Gaze at the reliquaries and tapestries and recharge my tranquility battery.
    Steven had been to the Cloisters with me once and considered that to have filled his medieval monastery quota for life. He liked a bit of mindlessness on the weekend and wanted to