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CHAPTER EIGHT: BETWEEN THE LINES - PART ONE
This was a terrible idea. Harri had suspected it the second she’d agreed to do it. But, now that the moment was here, she knew it. Without a single doubt.
“So,” her mother said as she spread her cloth napkin across her lap, “how long have you two been seeing each other?”
They were all seated around a too small, glass table in the corner of her mother’s favorite upscale French bistro. Harri really hadn’t wanted to come, but Azel had pointed out that, if they really wanted to convince Nate, they needed to convince her family and friends. If they kept seeing and treating Nate as her boyfriend, Nate had no reason to stop either. So, despite her reservations and with extensive prepping, they’d come.
Azel, as if sensing Harri’s stress level, reached for her hand under the table and smiled at her mother politely. “Not very long. Only a few weeks but I know having the people in Harri’s life hear about us through other people was…” He paused, as if weighing his words carefully, before reciting the explanation they’d discussed ahead of time. “We didn’t think it was a good situation for any of us.”
Her mother sniffed and lifted her fork to pick at her Waldorf salad. “Well, I’m glad that it sounds as if neither of you are rushing into anything.” She looked at Harri pointedly, making her feel six years old again. “I’d hate for you to do anything you can’t take back.”
Harri’s hand — her whole body — tensed, as she felt all the complicated emotions she felt around her mother rise inside her. Shame. Anger. Disappointment. And a deep need to seek her approval and love. Again, she felt Azel squeeze her hand, a silent sign that, even if she didn’t think she did, he knew she could do this. He had her back.
So she straightened her shoulders and met her mother’s gaze. “I knew that you might be worried—”
“Might be?” Her mother scoffed behind a perfect bite of her salad.
“—and we wanted to put your mind at ease.”
“At ease!” Her mother’s incredulity made her voice literally crack.
“Yes,” Harri continued, working hard to keep her own voice calm in the face of her mother’s very un-calm tone. “I’m happy now. Happier than I’ve been in a long time—”
Harri shut her mouth at her mother’s raised hand. “I’m sure you are.” She leaned forward and laid her hand over Harri’s clenched fist. “I remember what it was like to be young and on the cusp of your real life.” She pouted and gave her daughter a patronizing look. “It can be scary to take that first step into adulthood, so if you need…” She looked Azel up and down, pursing her lips. “...time to sort yourself out…” She shook her head, her perfectly arranged hair not moving even a strand. “We’ll all be here for you, dear. You know that.” She sat back and picked her fork back up. “Just don’t keep us waiting too long, if you know what I mean.”
Nate. She meant Nate. Harri knew she meant Nate. Azel knew she meant Nate. Hell, the diners at the surrounding tables likely knew she meant goddamed Nate.
“Harri is an adult.”
Both Harri and her mother turned to Azel. Her mother raised an imperious eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
Azel sat up straighter, his ill-fitting sport coat stretching over his broad shoulders and tucked-away, covered wings. “With all due respect, Mrs. Wren. But Harri is not only of age, she’s educated, successful. She’s the most responsible, most capable, smartest person I know.”
Harri stared at Azel. This wasn’t their script. Wasn’t the clean, pat answers she’d told him to say. Where was this coming from?
Azel ticked off his fingers. “She has a good job. A good home. She has friends and is always willing — sometimes too willing — to help out everyone around her as much as she can.” He met her mother’s steely gaze unflinchingly. Something she didn’t think she felt up to most of the time. “Even now, she arranged this meet-up — took time out of her busy life to do something she knew would likely be deeply awkward — to make you feel better.” He lifted their joined hands and laid them on the table, in front of her mother. Harri stared at their hands, feeling his strength, his confidence, his conviction in her, flow from him into her. It felt good. Better than anything she could have ever imagined. “By every metric that matters, your daughter is an adult, one who has proven she can make the best decisions about herself and her life.”
Her mother’s gaze narrowed on their entwined hands. “Maybe not every metric.” She held up her hands to cut off whatever either Harri or Azel might say. “Look, I’m sure you’re a perfectly fine…” She waved her hand dismissively over Azel. “But she is my daughter; I think I know a little bit more about what’s best for her.”
“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.” That thought just kept haunting her. Did anyone in her life truly understand her? Did Harri herself?
She looked at Azel, at the surety radiating from him. Did he know her? It felt like he did. Or was it that he accepted her, however she was, however she needed to be in that moment, without judgment or reservation? Was it that he let her show him who she was, instead of expecting her to be someone else?
“I just don’t think you’ve thought this through,” her mother continued. “I’m sure you both are having your fun now, but where is this going? Really? How does this all look in five years? Ten? Twenty?” She too precisely cut her salad into smaller and smaller bites. “How will your lives fit together? Do you plan to bring him to family events, like weddings and funerals? Are you prepared to attend work or social events together, where image matters? Where will you live? Will your landlord even allow someone like him on your lease? How will you get married? How will you even be able to attend services together, much less be married in our church? How will you have children? Is it even possible and, if it is, will they be normal or will they be…” She looked Azel up and down again. “I’m just saying these are questions you should have answers to.”
Harri didn’t know whether to stare slack-jawed at her mother’s rudeness or to grind her teeth in rage. “Like we said, it’s only been a few weeks; I don’t think we need to be asking those kinds of questions quite yet. But,” she said, feeling more than a little hurt along with being incredibly offended on Azel’s behalf, “I would hope that anywhere I was welcome, my partner — whoever they might be — would be welcome as well.” She stood up, tossing her napkin over her mostly untouched lunch. “Azel agreed to come here with me, so you could meet him, so you could see who he is outside the gossip being whispered in your ear, and hopefully feel more comfortable with all this.” Harri shook her head. She’d known this was a bad idea. “I would have hoped you could have met us with the same goodwill.” Harri should have known her mother wouldn’t.
Thank God none of this was real. She hated putting Azel through this. Making him sit here being demeaned and dismissed by her mother. Over her. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like, if they were actually dating. To be sitting with the person you wanted to spend your life with and see this as your future. No one was worth that, certainly not her.
“She’s the most responsible, most capable, smartest person I know.” He’d said such wonderful things about her. In a moment where she’d felt like none of those things, he’d said them with unwavering certainty. Seen who she wanted to be, who she tried very hard to be. She owed it to him to do her best to live up to that, as much as she could.
So she reached for her purse and pulled out several bills, enough to cover the tab and tip. “Enjoy your lunch, Mother. Please let me know, when you’re ready to try this again. Until then,” she said, reaching out a hand to Azel as he stood up too, “we have nothing more to say.”
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