A Song in the Daylight (2009) by Paullina Simons

Author:Paullina Simons
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Paullina Simons
ISBN: 9780007353156
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-06-29T23:00:00+00:00

2

Mothers

Larissa kept looking at her hands. She and Emily painted their own nails nowadays with Michelangelo’s abstract art help, but all three of them weren’t very good with the cuticles. She must go back to Grace’s soon and get a proper manicure. In the meantime she and Kavanagh were having another unhelpful conversation about family. Why ask unanswerable questions, trying to get to the bottom of a bottomless morass, when all Larissa wanted was to be flying, up up up, not down down down like planes from skies? Talking about Jared, her home, her family was so depressing. Why do it?

“I don’t want to talk about them,” she said. “Can’t we talk about something else?”

“Sure,” said Kavanagh. “Let’s talk about your mother.”

Larissa groaned.

“You don’t want to talk about her either?” The doctor sighed. “Would you like to talk about movies? I just saw The Prince of Tides,” she said. “It was good.”

“My mother is an attractive woman,” Larissa said. “Okay? Pleasant. Nice.”

“Do you see her?”

“Of course. She is the children’s grandmother.”

“I didn’t ask if your children see her.”

“When they see her, I see her.”

“What about your father?”

“He’s dead. So I don’t see him as often as I’d like. Before that he was in Florida.” They were divorced the year Kai was born. Larissa went pale, had to gather herself for a few moments by remaining silent and licking her dry lips at the sour-bitter taste in her mouth.

“Amicable?”

“Not particularly.” Wasn’t that the understatement of the day.

“When you were growing up, what kind of a relationship did you have with your mother?”

Larissa paused. “Why do we need to talk about this? I’m an adult. I don’t live with my parents. What’s happening to me now has nothing to do with my mother or father.”

“Larissa. What’s happening to you now is you are having an imbalance in your feelings for your actual life on one end and your lover on the other.”

“He is also my life.”

“Yes. But—”

“My relationship with my mother was strained when I was growing up,” Larissa cut in. “My brothers were grown and out of the house. My parents had me late in life. I was their only daughter. My dad adored me.”

“And you?”

“I adored him back.”

“What about now?”

“Now he is dead.”

“What about before he died?”

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” said Larissa.

“How long were your parents married?”

“Thirty-three years.”

“That’s a long time.” Kavanagh studied Larissa, who was realizing she absolutely hated to be studied. “Did he leave your mother for another woman?”

Deeply reluctantly Larissa answered. “Guess so.”

Kavanagh looked at her with understanding. “And you,” she said, “who always sided with your dad against your mother, as an adult was faced with the fact that your father did an unforgivable thing. Suddenly your mother needed your sympathy. How did that go?”

“Distantly. I was in college. I had my own life.”

Kavanagh was quiet. Larissa was quiet.

“Is your relationship with your mother strained now?”

“No, it’s polite. Cordial.”

“She’s polite?”

“And I’m cordial.”

“And underneath?”

“Don’t think much about it. Don’t need to.”

“Would you describe your mother and you as close?”

Larissa chewed her lip.

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