Chapter 13 - Heather

Chapter 13

Heather

Cusco, Peru

"I'm not talking to you," Heather said to her mother, dropping into a seat at the dinner table.

Bon had booked them a table at a little place upstairs on the Plaza de Armas. They were seated on the balcony, overlooking San Blas, the old quarter of the city. It was a table for three, with no Owen, and no Shawn and Kyle. It was cold out, and the air was clear and sharp, blue with falling night; the lights were turning on in the winding tumble of streets, blurs of gold, an impressionist painting brought to life.

"I think that's an extreme reaction," her mother told her stiffly, keeping her attention on the wine list.

Heather rolled her eyes.

"After all, you came here to spend time with us," Mom continued. "I don't think hooking up with strangers was on the itinerary, so there's no need to be such a thundercloud."

"Sandra," Bon interrupted. "Stop annoying her and order a bottle of wine."

"Me? Annoying her?" Mom's head snapped up from the wine list. "She's the one who walked in all huffy."

"I'd take issue with that, but I'm not talking to you." Heather took the wine list out of her hands. "And I'll order the wine."

"Spend as much as you want," Bon told her. "I'm paying for it and it's my last hurrah so don't worry about the price."

"Oh, please, Mom, don't be so dramatic," Mom grumped. "You're only seventy. This is in no way your last hurrah. I'll bet you fifty dollars you're climbing Everest this time next year or riding a camel across a desert in Jordan or something."

"No, I'm done." Bon considered the menu. "What do you think alpaca tastes like?"

"Ew, Mom. Really."

"What do you mean ew?" Bon was nonplussed. "How is it any different to eating a cow?"

"Red wine, then, if you're thinking about red meat." Heather went back to the wine list.

"Is alpaca red meat? I've never tried it."

"I'm going to order something Peruvian. We haven't had much local wine." Heather was just glad not to be talking about the whole Owen mess. It only made her angry.

"Do they make wine in Peru?" Mom asked, trying to get Heather talking to her, like it was a game she wanted to win.

Heather didn't respond.

"Fine." Mom wasn't one to be ignored, though. She called the waiter over. "Excuse me," she said brightly. "Hablas Inglés?"

The waiter did.

"Oh, good. Does Peru make wine?"

"We have the oldest vineyards in South America," the waiter said politely. "Some of our grapes date back to the sixteenth century."

"Wonderful." Mom shot Heather a look. "My daughter was hoping you could recommend a nice red."

Heather folded the wine list. She smiled courteously at the waiter but resented being dragged into this three-way conversation with her mom. "A malbec maybe," Heather told the waiter. "I was thinking about having the trout." She kept her attention squarely on the waiter.

"One of the Vitor Valley malbecs would be a good choice," the waiter suggested, and she and Heather fell into a conversation about the terroir of the region and the unique qualities of Peruvian wines made in the European style. Heather took childish pleasure in locking her mother out of the conversation.

"Since when do you know so much about wine?" Bon asked, astonished, once the waiter had dug up a fancy bottle from the cellar and decanted it at the table.

"Since she moved to Chicago," Mom muttered, slouching like an angry teen.

"I joined a wine club," Heather told her grandmother.

Bon sipped the wine, impressed. "You're a dark horse, aren't you?" She took another sip and then sat back in her chair. "Alright, ladies, listen up. This trip hasn't started out on the right foot. Things need to change."

Heather didn't know about that. She'd liked her beginning in Barranco. It was the rest of it that wasn't working out.

Bon put her hand on Junior's box, which was on the table, as usual. "I'm not spending all this money so you can ignore your mother, Heather," she said sternly.

Heather blinked, shocked that she was the one in the firing line. "Wait. What? You're mad at me?"

"Hush. I'm mad at both of you. Honestly, you're grown women and you're acting like children."

Heather thought that was some nerve, given the way Bon and Sandy bickered.

"I can't believe we got to the point where you weren't answering your mom's messages, Heather."

"Can you blame me?" Heather couldn't believe Bon could say this, after the stunt Mom had just pulled. "She doesn't have any sense of appropriate boundaries!"

"She's your mother."

Heather's mom was gazing at Bon, gratified. "Thanks, Mom."

"And you," Bon snapped at her daughter. "You haven't been answering my messages, so you don't get to be all smug."

Mom flushed. "You know why I'm not answering your messages."

"Because you want to wallow."

Heather reached for her wine. "And you told me I was acting like a child," she muttered.

"You're both acting like children."

"No," Heather snapped. "I'm putting boundaries in place. Which I'm allowed to do. She just doesn't like it."

"And is that what you're doing with me, Sandra? Putting boundaries in place?"

"No," Mom exhaled angrily. "I just don't want to talk to you when I'm depressed. Because you tell me to pull myself up by my bootstraps and I just can't. You've never been able to just let me be."

"I was worried about you."

"So? So, you're worried. You'll cope. I'm just fine, wallowing under my bedclothes without showering for a while. My marriage just ended, goddamn it. I'm allowed a bit of wallowing."

"I don't like wallowing," Bon said, her hand tensing on Junior's box.

"So don't do it. No one is making you wallow."

"I don't like you wallowing."

"Well, tough." Mom took an angry sip of wine. "It's my life."

Bon made a humph sound and sat back in her chair.

"I don't know why you're not talking to me, though." Mom turned on Heather. "It's not like I tell you to pull yourself up by the bootstraps."

"No," Heather said tightly, "you just invite my stalker ex-boyfriend along on our vacation."

"He's hardly a stalker!"

"This is why I don't answer your calls. Because you don't listen to me. You bulldoze right over me, insisting that what you want is what I want. I know what I want, Mom, and it's not Shawn. And he is a stalker. I don't like him chasing after me; I've said no; and he still does it." Heather was surging with adrenaline. She had the urge to get up and run. She could barely sit still, the feelings were so strong. "And as for you: you dump your emotions on me, and I don't want to be an emotional dumping ground. I'm a person, with my own thoughts and feelings, and I'm sick of being your carrier bag for nasty feelings. If you're mad at Dad, you dump it on me and expect me to carry it; if you're distraught, you dump it on me; if you're bleak, you dump it on me. I don't get the nice stuff. Dad gets that. When Dad's giving you flowers and making up with you, you disappear in a haze of happiness, with him. I only get you when he doesn't want you. And what I get is the dregs." Heather didn't know where it all came from. The words poured out of her like pus from an infected wound.

Mom looked stunned. "That's not true."

"It is. It is true!" And then Heather burst into tears.

There was a moment's silence and Heather held her napkin up to her face, still angry, but also something else. Something deeper than anger. Hurt.

"Well, at least she's talking to you again," Bon told Mom.

At that, Mom burst into tears too.

"Is everything alright?" The waiter approached the table nervously, as though she were approaching a table of hungry lions.

"Better than it's been all week," Bon said cheerfully. "Don't mind them, they're grieving." She patted Junior's box. "This is my husband, and we're here to say goodbye to him."

"Dios, I'm sorry!" The waiter was stricken.

Heather bit her lower lip and tried to stop crying, but now that she'd started, she couldn't seem to stop. And neither could Mom.

"It's better to cry than to bottle it up, don't you think?" Bon said to the waiter, sanguine.

"Of course. I'll fetch some tissues," the poor woman said, dashing off.

When she came back, she brought not only two boxes of tissues, but also a bottle of pisco and three shot glasses. "This looks like it needs something stronger than wine," she said sympathetically. "It's on us."

"You're too kind." Bon readily accepted a shot. "Here's to family!" She shot a sharp look at Mom and Heather and downed the shot.

* * *

Two hours later they were still on the balcony, more than a little drunk on wine and pisco, and quietly depleted from all the emotion. The other customers had dwindled, and the blue nighthad become an icy darkness. The waiter had brought them alpaca blankets and turned the heat lamp up as far as it would go. She'd offered them a table inside, but the three of them were enjoying watching the lights of San Blas and didn't want to leave the balcony.

"Aren't you glad you didn't eat an alpaca?" Mom said tiredly as she stroked the blanket on her lap.

"Not really." Bon sounded dissatisfied. "I was curious. The lamb was lovely, but I know what lamb tastes like."

Now that Heather had spat out her feelings, she felt empty. She pulled the blanket around her shoulders and watched the moon rise over the slanting rooftops. None of them had spoken about their argument after the waiter had delivered the pisco shots and a febrile peace had formed, like a rime of thin ice forming over a winter puddle. Nothing was solved, but nothing seemed to be broken either.

"You can feel the cold of the mountains here," Bon said, lifting her face to it, like she was sunbathing.

"It's beautiful," Mom sighed. "Too beautiful to seem real."

"It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site," Heather told them. She'd learned that from Owen, as they'd sat in the plaza below.

"I can see why." Mom stood and moved to the balustrade of the balcony.

"You're blocking the view," Bon said dryly.

"No, I'm just part of it."

Bon laughed and then called the waiter over. "Hey, honey, could we have three of those hot chocolates I keep seeing you carrying around? They look magnificent."

"Really, Mom, I couldn't eat another thing," Sandy protested.

"It's just a little drink. Besides, you can't say no to Peruvian chocolate in Peru. It would be rude."

The waiter rushed off to fetch their drinks while a sleepy Heather huddled under the blanket and let their voices wash over her.

"Mom?" Sandy said thoughtfully. "You know, Heather asked me about when I met Nick. And I realized afterward that I've never asked you about Dad. How you met him."

"Which Dad?"

"Dad Dad." Mom sounded a touch annoyed. "The dad who raised me."

"Dale, you mean?"

"Is there another man who raised me?"

"You said a Fleetwood Mac concert or something," Heather said drowsily, trying to head off any more conflict. She didn't have another fight in her tonight.

"No, not a Fleetwood Mac concert or something." Bon was put out. "I said I first had sex with him at a Fleetwood Mac concert. But that's not where we met."

Heather groaned. "This isn't a story with more sex in it, is it? I've heard enough about your sex lives to put me in therapy for the rest of my life."

"Where did you meet?" Mom prodded. "I can't believe I don't know."

Bon was suspiciously quiet.

"Bon?" Heather poked her in the arm. "Come on, spill."

"Fine. But don't judge me."

Oh, this was going to be good.