Rum and Coke

Dinner was…quiet. Normally, Uncle Kale is the main attraction, but he didn’t say a word during the meal. Neither did Ellie, which left Danielle and Uncle Jared to fill in the awkward void. The four of them were happy when dinner was over and the girls went back to their house.

“So, how was Paris?” Ellie asked her mother later that night after handing her a glass of red wine. They were sitting on their living room couch, relaxing after a hectic week apart.

“Pretty stressful. James Maddox sprained his ankle Wednesday during a show and we had to pull in Gary to finish- which, you know, is a complete disaster. Then I had to go to some snotty designer’s fashion show and ask him if he could re-design some costumes. So, in between running between a hospital room, my hotel room, the theatre, and a designer studio, I barely had time for myself. Luckily, Adam was there to keep my sanity in check. God, sometimes I don’t know what I would do without that man.” She took a long swig from the wine glass.

Ellie shifted uncomfortably in her spot beside her mother. She turned to face her mother. “If he means so much to you, then why do you always reject his marriage proposals?” Marriage and Love had always been touchy subjects with Danielle.

Calmly, Danielle set the wine glass down on the table in front of her and turned to her inquisitive daughter. “Ellie, it’s complicated. He wants something that I can’t give him.”

Ellie brought her legs closer to her. “That can’t be all. Tell me, Mom. I want to know. I’m ready for it.”

Danielle sighed and looked out the bay window. A slow downpour of rain hit the glass in a soothing manner. “I’m not a monogamous person. I don’t believe in marriage. You know this.” She stated simply. It wasn’t as if she were lying. She was only monogamous for a few brief two years of her life before deciding that she didn’t want the emotions that came with that lifestyle.

“Please?” Ellie asked, not believing that was the whole truth. “The truth, this time. I’m not buying anymore of your stories. If you were truly monogamous, then you wouldn’t have had me. You couldn’t have, if you were truly monogamous. You couldn’t have given me as much love as you did… ”

Danielle sighed heavily before she got up off of the couch and walked over to the large window.

“Mom?” Ellie asked, half sitting, half standing. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Danielle said as she stared at the pouring rain. “I-,” Danielle started. She hated talking about her first, and only, love. She would always get teary-eyed and feel emotions that she hadn’t felt in years. Every time she talked about him, she regressed back to the day that she had left him. She hated how he made her feel. Normally, she was a very strong and independent woman, but with him…she was a starry-eyed teenager.

“You don’t have to-”

“I was so strong before I met him,” Danielle stated angrily, not even hearing what her daughter had said. “And then? He broke me. He tamed me like the bitch I was.” Danielle hit the window with the palm of her hand. “To this day, I’m still pissed at him.” She turned to face her daughter, a look of relief on her aged face. “It’s taken years of therapy for me to say it, but, yea…he hurt me in so many ways.”

“What did he do?”

“He made me play his game, made me fall in love with him. Then, when I was no longer fun, he cast my aside like a rag doll, thus further confirming my belief that love- true, everlasting love- only exists in fairy tales and that one man and one woman could not coexist together in harmony.”

“Oh.”

Danielle cracked a smile. “But, hey, let’s not think about that, yea?” she asked as she walked back to the couch. She grabbed her daughter’s hands and gave them a small squeeze. “Tell me about school today. I hear that you were asked into the Headmaster’s office?”

Ellie hung her head and sighed. “Yea, I was.”

“Why?”

“I couldn’t sleep last night.”

“Oh, I see. Well, did anything else happen?”

Ellie bit her bottom lip and nervously turned her head away.

“Ellie?”

“Um, I need your help for my history class.”

Danielle scrunched up her nose. “Don’t think you changing the subject is going unnoticed by me. I definitely noticed it-”

“Mom, leave it be for now.”

Danielle nodded her head and placed her hand on her daughter’s thigh. “Honey, as much as I appreciate the gesture, but I don’t think I can help you- I mean, I dropped out-”

“It’s a genealogy project.”

“Oh.”

“Yea, I need names...real names.”

Danielle bit her bottom lip. “Ellie, I would love to help you, but I can’t. I’ve told you a hundred times, we don’t have a family. It’s just me and you.”

“Mom, please! I don’t want to fail!”

“And I don’t want you to, Ellie...but, my grandmother disowned my mother when she found drugs. I disowned my mother because the only damn thing she did with me was steal all my money. So, now you see why I say that our family doesn’t have a history. It’s too broken to even attempt to string together,” Danielle said in a cold, almost seething tone that her daughter didn’t recognize. “And I’m terrified that one day, you will do the same thing to me. I don’t think I could live with myself if that ever happened.” Danielle added in a much softer tone.

“Mom,” Ellie said in a soft voice as she approached and embraced her mother. “I could never do that to you.”

Danielle returned the hug and kissed her daughter’s head. Words couldn’t explain the millions of emotions that were going through her. Danielle had never been one to properly deal with emotions. They had always been foreign to her, having grown up on the cold streets of East LA. But, one thing she knew for certain was that the emotions that came with motherhood terrified her. So, Danielle did the only thing that she knew how to do, she changed the subject. “Well, it’s been a long day and you have school in the morning.”

Ellie nodded her head. "Yea, I'll see you in the morning."