P.S.

“Are you doing okay?”

Olivia glanced up at her mother, noticing Denise’s cold fingers against her hand. Even after all these years, Olivia still hated flying and ended up wound tighter than a cobra – or, as Harry would say, than an eight-day clock – with each flight.

Olivia shrugged in response. “Same as any other time,” she replied. “Just wish the flight back home wasn’t so long,” she added with a snicker as she stretched her leg into the aisle, trying to rid the kink in her knee that would be present until the plane landed.

Denise smiled. “Good,” she answered, rubbing Olivia’s arm. “But… I meant the other thing…”

Olivia furrowed her brow. “What other thing?” she questioned warily. She hadn’t mentioned a word about her time spent with Harry to her mother. Denise was far more opinionated than either one of Olivia’s sisters and she wouldn’t understand the wave of emotions and doubt coursing through Olivia’s mind. Olivia hardly understood it. Denise was also Ben’s biggest fan. Olivia was certain Denise’s thoughts on the matter would mimic Stephanie and Jessica’s, but amplified.

Though, Denise could just as easily be talking about the fact that Olivia ripped her favourite jeans.

Denise raised an eyebrow, a knowing smirk on her face. “Your sisters have big mouths. Especially Stephanie,” she added. “They told me you saw Harry…” she said, the words slow and careful.

Olivia sighed. Of course her sisters had spilled her secret. Their big mouths did not surprise Olivia. It only surprised her Denise waited until the flight home to bring it up. “I did…” Olivia answered, her words as slow and careful as Denise’s had been.

“And?” Denise pressed, cocking her head as she tried to peer into Olivia’s eyes. Olivia sensed her mother’s eyes on her but she kept her head down, avoiding her gaze. The two were not close, for reasons like this. Olivia hardly spoke and yet felt judged by her mother already.

Olivia suppressed a sigh. “And what?” she asked, picking up the safety brochure from the seatback and fiddling with the corners of the laminate. She hated being trapped in the conversation she did not want to have.

“Well, why didn’t you tell me?” Denise asked. “If it was just an innocent coffee, there would be no reason to hide it, right?”

Olivia closed her eyes. Denise’s tone of voice was one Olivia heard countless times over her lifetime. Light and phony, with a hint of laughter tucked into the hoards of condescension. Olivia would fall for her facetious nurturing bit as a child, but she wouldn’t now.

“That’s right,” Olivia answered in a tight voice, glancing up and down the aisle for the stewardess. Wine was a necessity if Denise insisted on discussing Harry.

“So, you’re saying it wasn’t innocent?”

Olivia breathed out a loud exhale. “Mom!” she exclaimed. “I really don’t want to talk about this!”

“Is there something to talk about?”

Olivia leaned her head back against the seat. Her mother was infuriating. “You already know everything, don’t you?” she told Denise. “I’m sure Steph told you everything, in great, exaggerated detail. You don’t need me to fill you in on anything.” She stood up, bracing her hands on the back of the seat. “I’m going pee. And when I come back, I’m reading… for the rest of the trip. Or sleeping,” she added as a second thought. She lacked the attention span to read for six hours even if the alternative was a painful heart-to-heart with her critical mother.

She stumbled her way to the back of the plane, grasping on to various seats as the plane bounced over the fly over states. After locking herself in the tiny washroom, she pressed her fingers against her forehead, trying to rid the headache her mother caused, and the thoughts running through her mind.

She had no idea what to expect when she arrived home. Ben would pick her up, and she didn’t know how she would feel seeing him. She prayed she would be as excited to see him as she always was, that seeing Ben would make all the thoughts and what-ifs about Harry vanish, and all of her unanswered questions would finally have an answer. It had to happen. She had to make it happen.

Olivia toyed with her phone, refusing the temptation to use the plane’s free Wi-Fi to send a snotty Facebook message to her sister. She couldn’t handle an electronic battle with her sister at the same time as a face-to-face battle with her mother.

Olivia covered her face with her hands. This was so wrong. She made the decision. She could have been with Harry, but she chose Ben. Picking Ben was the right thing to do. She’d already broken Harry’s heart, she couldn’t break Ben’s. One broken heart was enough on her resume. She couldn’t let her own decision disappoint her.

Still, it didn’t change the fact it did.

Olivia scrubbed her hands and let out a loud sigh at the thought of sitting next to her mother before pulling open the door and trudging down the aisle. She slumped in her seat, avoiding Denise’s eyes as she pawed through her purse for her book.

“In answer to your question…” Denise began, inciting a loud groan from Olivia. “Your sister didn’t tell me everything. She told me a bit, but decided it would be better coming from you.”

Bullshit, Olivia thought. She saw right through Denise’s ploy. She huffed out another sigh and turned to face her mother. “Say what you have to say, Mom! Just say it, and press your lips together into a fake smile while you hum critically, like you always do! Tell me I’m wrong, tell me you’re right. Just fucking get it over with, please, so we can get through the rest of this flight in peace!”

Denise looked shocked by Olivia’s outburst but her tone said otherwise. “You shouldn’t swear, Liv,” she reminded her daughter.

“Oh, Jesus Christ!” Olivia exploded, leaning her head against the seat. “You are fucking driving me insane, you know that?” Olivia asked, ignoring her mother’s suggestion as she flipped open her book. She wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the words, but she hoped the prop would be enough to dissuade Denise.

It wasn’t.

Denise waited just long enough. Olivia almost thought her mother would leave the conversation alone. But as Denise began to speak, Olivia laughed without humour. Of course she couldn’t leave it alone.

“I’m not judging you,” Denise began, her voice surprisingly gentle. “I’m asking you what happened. Honey…” she said, touching Olivia’s arm again. Olivia wanted to recoil, but she didn’t. “I am your mother. I can tell you’re troubled, and I want to help you. What’s going on?”

Olivia breathed out a long sigh. She wasn’t certain her mother would refrain from judging her, or voicing her opinion. Her thirty-five years of experience said otherwise, but her emotions were a tangled mess. Talking them through could help remind her Ben was the right – and only – choice.

Olivia faced her mother. “If you make one judgmental comment, or let out some stupid hum or sigh, I promise I will never tell you a thing again,” Olivia warned. “Just… you can call Stephanie when you get home and talk about what a shitty person I am then. I don’t want to listen to it.”

Denise frowned. “No matter what you say, I will not think you’re a… shitty person,” she told Olivia, voicing the cuss word in a low voice. Olivia’s mouth did not come from her mother’s side. “I only want to help you,” she reiterated, offering Olivia a smile that was almost comforting. “You never let me help you,” she added as an afterthought.

Wonder why, Olivia thought, but she kept her mouth quiet. Instead, she replayed the course of the last several days in her mind, trying to determine the best way to tell Denise about her time with Harry. She blew out a raspberry sigh. There was no best way. “I saw Harry at a coffee shop. That day when me and the girls took the kids to that weird Frosty the Snowman village,” she began, remembering how much fun she’d had with her sisters and the kids that day. They’d spent the day looking at odd snowmen displays and laughing about everything. The memories of the event before she saw Harry were almost a blur as his appearance had become the focal point of the day.

“He saw me first,” Olivia added before Denise asked. “He came up to me and we talked a bit, and then he asked if I wanted to go to dinner with him.”

“What did you feel when you saw him?” Denise asked. Her tone of voice was unsettling. The words sounded too calm, too mothering.

Olivia covered her face with her hands. “I swear to God, Mom…”

Denise sighed. “I said, I will not judge you,” she assured Olivia. “Tell me… what did you feel when you saw him?”

Olivia sighed, her memory slipping back to the day at the café when Harry approached her with the silly movie quote. She smiled at the memory, unaware of the happiness on her face. “It was… like no time had passed…” she confessed in a quiet voice. She kept her eyes down, focusing on her hands on her lap. “Like I’d seen him only yesterday. And I… was really happy to see him,” she added, her voice almost inaudible.

“Did he know you were engaged when he asked you to dinner?”

Olivia shrugged. “I don’t know,” she answered. “Maybe? Maybe not? I wasn’t all like ‘hi, nice to see you, been a long time, here’s this ring, let’s talk about this’ if that’s what you’re asking,” Olivia added sarcastically. “So yeah, no, I didn’t tell him either. It didn’t come up,” she said, knowing it could have come up if she’d have brought it up.

“Are you really still in love with him?”

Olivia groaned at the snide tone of voice. There it was. The sensitive, nurturing mother was now the meddling, judgmental woman Olivia had become accustomed to. It took longer for the real Denise to come out than Olivia had expected. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she decided, shaking her head at her mother. “It doesn’t matter anymore, anyway, because I’m on this plane, going home to Ben because that’s what I should – what I want to do! So I just… just stop. I’m done.”

“All right,” Denise replied, stunning Olivia. Denise never gave up on a conversation so easily.

Olivia met her eyes, seeing Denise shrug before picking up her magazine. She watched her mother, expecting a second wind of conversation to begin at any moment. But Denise continued to flip through the pages of her magazine, seemingly satisfied with the abrupt ending to the conversation.

Olivia furrowed her brow, her gaze going between her mother and her book. Denise’s silence baffled her. Olivia expected Denise to interrupt the silence with another comment at any moment, but the minutes ticked by without a word spoken between the mother and daughter. Finally, after almost an entire hour of silence had passed, Olivia slammed her book down.

“I know you have more to say, so just say it,” Olivia told her mother, sighing as she gestured for her mother to continue. She didn’t want to hear the rest of Denise’s thoughts, but she would rather hear it now than have Denise pipe up at an inopportune time in the future.

Denise was quiet, an uncharacteristic sad smile on her face. She looked down at her hands, confusing Olivia. Denise never missed an opportunity to voice her opinions, and Olivia never asked for her opinions. She expected Denise to jump down her throat with a myriad of opinions, not to sit quietly looking as though she could cry at any moment.

“Mom?” Olivia asked, her confused tone gentle as she touched her mother’s hand. “What… are you going to cry?” she asked, dumbfounded.

Denise cleared her throat. “No,” she answered, though her husky voice said otherwise. She let out a quiet sigh. “Liv, honey… I… I don’t think you should marry Ben.”

Olivia stared at Denise. Her brow furrowed with confusion and her mouth made a tiny circle as she tried to comprehend what her mother had just said. “What?” she finally managed to ask. She must have heard Denise wrong. There was no way her mother would ever suggest Olivia not marry Ben. Denise loved Ben more than she loved her own daughter, Olivia was almost certain. And, as a strong believer in marriage and a lack of understanding of Olivia’s bachelorette live, Denise made her relief known that Olivia was finally getting married. She couldn’t have said what Olivia thought. There was no way Denise would suggest Olivia not do what she so strongly believed her daughter should do.

Denise nodded. “You can’t marry another man while you’re still in love with your ex,” she told Olivia. “It’s not fair to Ben, you know that. And,” she continued before Olivia could cut in, “I don’t think you should be with Harry, either.”

The furrowed scowl never left Olivia’s face. She’d hardly had time to process Denise’s first comment about Olivia’s love life before her mother voiced her second opinion. The two surprising comments stunned Olivia, and she didn’t know what comment to focus on.

“So… are you just trying to sabotage my life in every way possible?” Olivia finally stammered out. She shook her head at her mother with disgust. “I mean… for crying out loud, Mom! You run up one side of me and down the other for not marrying Ryan, then I meet Harry and you never took that relationship seriously, and then I finally meet Ben and you rave and rave about how your spinster daughter is finally going to get married, and now you’re telling me I shouldn’t marry him? Or be with Harry? And that’s not even a thing I want anyway,” she quickly lied. “Do you just thrive in my misery?”

Denise let out a quiet scoff. “You are being very dramatic,” she told Olivia. “I don’t thrive in your misery, and I am not trying to sabotage your life.” Denise reached out and touched Olivia’s hand. This time, Olivia recoiled. Denise sighed. “If you don’t take the time to think about what you really want, you’ll never know what you want. You didn’t want to quit your job and move with Ben to the coast. Did you do it because you love him or because you felt you had to?” Denise shrugged. “I don’t know. But you need to take time for you, because your happiness is the most important.”

“I’m thirty-five years old, Mom!” Olivia exclaimed. “I don’t have time to reconsider every single aspect of my life!” She huffed out a loud sigh at her words. It almost would seem she was marrying Ben because of her age and not because of her true love for him. She pushed that thought away. “So I’ll marry Ben, I’ll forget about Harry and… it’ll all be fine, okay? Just… stop fucking meddling!”

Without waiting for a reply from Denise, Olivia grabbed her bag and stomped down the aisle. She stopped in front of her teenage nephew, slumped in his seat as he focused on a video game walk-through on his tablet. Olivia tapped his shoulder, huffing out an impatient sigh as James pulled his gaze from his device.

“Grandma wants to talk to you,” she told him, nodding towards the back of the plane. “Scoot, I left a bag of corn nuts for you back there.”

James matched Olivia’s sigh. “She’s so annoying,” he grumbled, gathering his belongings as he stood up.

“That’s the truth,” Olivia agreed, sliding into James’ vacated seat. She shook her head at Jessica, who was eyeing Olivia curiously from the middle seat. Olivia just wanted to get through the rest of the flight and get her life and mind back in order.

~*~*~*~

After bidding her family farewell in Vancouver, Olivia carried on through security while her family boarded their final flight home. She’d hugged Denise goodbye and reassured her that they would be fine, but Olivia wouldn’t be able to forget Denise’s opinions on her love life. And, deep down, she wondered if Denise may be right. But Olivia had lived for thirty-five years never believing Denise was right, she wasn’t going to start now.

As Olivia rode the escalator down to the main entrance, she spotted a tall, striking man at the bottom of the stairs. A wide grin was on his face, and as she saw him, Olivia matched his smile. She stepped off the escalator and, almost instantly he swept her into his arms. For a moment, she forgot about Harry and her time in New York. She forgot about loving Harry more than she loved Ben. But, it was just for a moment.

“Welcome home,” Ben murmured into Olivia’s hair, his husky frame encircling her. Olivia couldn’t deny how nice it was to feel so tiny compared to Ben.

“It’s nice to be home,” Olivia mumbled back, tightening her grip around Ben. It was nice to be home. Olivia couldn’t wait to get to their house, get unpacked and get Harry out of her mind.

Ben pulled from Olivia and took her suitcase from her. “Christmas sucked without you,” Ben admitted as they walked through the airport. “I plugged in that ugly glass tree thing you have, but then I worked a double so I didn’t even see it on Christmas.”

“Aww… well, next year will be different,” Olivia promised him. The words tasted odd in her mouth. For a fleeting moment, she wondered how next year would be different. With a quiet sigh, she forced that thought from her mind. That was not the way to get Harry out of her mind.

“Did you grab that lasagna from the freezer?” Olivia asked, willing any thought of Harry from her mind. “I’m the one who’s been on holidays, but I bet you’re the one who’s been eating only at restaurants,” she teased, bumping her hip against Ben’s.

Ben snickered. “I did,” he answered. “It’ll be nice to eat something that doesn’t come in a paper bag. But it won’t be tonight,” he added, glancing down at Olivia as they stepped outside into the damp, Vancouver air.

“How come?” asked Olivia. She smiled at the thought of Ben planning a sweet, welcome home date for the two of them. He really did deserve better than her.

“I took a shift,” Ben answered. “I know, sorry,” he added. “But Morgan’s kid is sick, so…” He shrugged apologetically.

Olivia frowned, her disappointment clear on her face. She hadn’t seen Ben in over a week, and she needed to spend time with him to reiterate to herself that she made the right choice. She knew she should be proud he took a shift from a single mom with a sick child, but it didn’t change that she wanted to spend the evening with Ben, not alone with her thoughts.

“It’s okay,” Olivia lied, forcing a smile onto her face. “I probably wouldn’t be able to get through dinner without falling asleep, anyway,” she told him, hoping she sounded light and breezy.

Ben smiled, appearing relieved. “Thanks, babe,” he answered, gesturing as he directed Olivia towards the waiting truck. He hoisted her suitcase into the backseat before opening the door for Olivia. “I’m off New Year’s Eve though,” he added as he joined Olivia in the front seat.

“Oh, good,” Olivia replied with a smile. Kissing her fiancé on New Year’s Eve was exactly what should happen. Thoughts of who her ex-boyfriend would be kissing on New Year’s Eve was not.

Ben grinned, tapping Olivia’s ring finger. “Been a year since I locked you down with this rock,” he teased. He tapped her hand with an erratic beat. “Talked to my mom a bit about it, actually,” Ben added after a few quiet moments.

“Oh really?” asked Olivia. Ben talked to his mother weekly, but as far as Olivia knew, they never discussed his upcoming nuptials. She glanced at him. “What did you say?” For a brief moment, Olivia wondered if Ben’s mother had made the same suggestion Olivia’s mother did. How simple that would make things, she realised she was thinking.

Ben chuckled. “She wondered if we knew that engagements usually to lead to marriage,” he laughed. “Kind of getting on me a bit about when we’re going to do this thing, because her and Dad want to go to Italy this fall.”

“I see…” Olivia mused. “So… what did you tell her?”

“Nothing really, but I thought once the holidays and stuff are over, we should sit down and really hammer this shit out,” Ben suggested.

This thing. This shit. Olivia knew it was just how Ben spoke, but she didn’t like hearing him describe their wedding in such a crass manner. But, she nodded. “I think that’s a great idea,” she replied instead. “I’m ready to start planning our day,” she added, ignoring the nagging voice in the back of her mind asking if she was sure. The voice sounded too much like her mother’s, and Denise knew nothing about Olivia’s life. She had to ignore it.

Notes