Heavy Heart

“It’s all going to be okay, I promise. The sun is going to come up in the morning, you’re going to get off that plane, you’re going to breathe fresh New England air, and you’re going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay Daria.”

“Olivia, I love you.”

“I love you too, Daria. Keep your chin up. And call me when you land.”



It had been days since Daria slept, the entire eight and a half hour plane ride completely restless for her exhausted bones. Her eyes were dry from crying, all the tears completely gone from her system, leaving her numb instead. She couldn’t remember the last time she cried for so long. It seemed that finally she would be done and then another wave of realization would hit her: she and Harry were done. She and Harry were over. She and Harry would never see each other again.

It was all over the newsstands in JFK, her face hidden by the sleeve of her coat as she dodged the paparazzi down the block from Harry’s upon leaving for the station. It turned out she hadn’t avoided them as masterfully as she thought she did upon arrival. The whole world was speculating about the state of their relationship when the photos came out of a sobbing Daria leaving Harry’s house. That is, until an unnamed source contacted The Sun with inside information that she and Harry had split. She couldn’t help but think it was Violet. Though she loved her friends in the eight-man, gossip travelled fast between them.

The sight of her house in Middletown was enough to make Daria want to get on a plane right back in the direction she came. It was exactly as she left it -yellow, colonial, and surrounded in a wrap around porch. The roof met in a sharp peak at the top, covered in a thick layer of freshly fallen snow. Everything around her was covered in that almost-forgotten white blanket, crunching softly under her feet and the wheels of her suitcase as she approached the front door. As she drew nearer, she noticed a Christmas tree lit in the front window – a feature her house had not sported in the eleven years since her father passed away.

Her hand was heavy on the door handle, afraid to turn it and face what was inside. She had yet to speak more than five words to her mother – sent in an email: “I’m coming home on Saturday.” She sent it shortly after she returned from Harry’s that Thursday, the letters blurred by the fit of angry tears in her line of vision. She decided at once that she needed to get her life in Connecticut back in order: to call Carla and get hours at Yellow Spoon, to contact Wesleyan to notify them that she would indeed be returning to school in January, and most importantly, set things straight with her mother. That she’d left until she could do it in person.

Her keys fit perfectly into the lock, and upon twisting it her stomach twisted into tight, uneasy knots. Nothing had changed aside from that eerie Christmas tree in the living room window. Or so she thought until she pushed through the door and into the foyer of her usually empty home. Only when her eyes set sights on her surroundings, she realized that next to nothing was the same.

There was furniture – new furniture at that – complete with a rug to wipe her snowy feet on. Something about the tone of the house had a bizarrely warm tone to it, like someone lived there again and actually flipped the light switch to on every once and a while. The air was scented with the spicy tinges of cinnamon and pumpkin, the scent of a pie in the oven. And there was laughter trailing from the kitchen, a laugh she hadn’t heard in a long, long time. Then another laugh that she didn’t recognize.

“Mom?” she called into the depths of the house, the normal echo stunningly absent. Her voice instead absorbed against the plush accents of the home, the fresh coat of warm tan paint accentuating the fact that the home was being lived in. Had she not heard her mother’s laugh, she would have thought someone else had moved in.

“In the kitchen!”

Her heart gave way at the sound of Georgia’s voice, a sound again she hadn’t heard in a long time – not since they last talked in October. And it only gave way more to hear the voice of the laugh that followed hers, deep and gravelly and undeniably male, though Daria couldn’t distinguish what he was saying. Her mother was entertaining male company.

Though her surroundings were different, the path to the kitchen was the same. Her pulse had all but stopped in her chest as she approached the doorway, leaving her suitcase leaned up against a barely empty spot on the wall. Finally, she laid eyes on her mother, radiant and nearly unrecognizable, sitting across the table from a man she’d never seen with a glass of wine in her hand.

“Daria.”

In a gasping breath, Georgia crossed the room and wrapped her daughter in her arms, something she hadn’t done in a long time. Her embrace was warm and unfamiliar, much like everything in the house. And when she pulled away, the smile on her face was next to unfamiliar too – it had been so long since Daria had last seen it.

“Hey Mom,” she hummed with a weak smile, a creeping sense of awkwardness approaching her in a chill through her spine. Her eyes darted between Georgia and the man at the table, who had now turned to face them. He had a face of a gentle heart but the body of quite the opposite, rippling muscles bulging discreetly beneath a long sleeve shirt.

“Things are a little different around here, yeah?” Georgia offered, equally awkward. Her face seemed younger somehow, like the burdening weight that once rested on her shoulders had been lifted.

“I’d say so,” Daria said more in the direction of the strange man than to her mother.

“Oh! I’d nearly forgot he was here I was so excited to see you just now,” Georgia exclaimed teasingly, turning to her guest and motioning for him to come forward. “Daria, this is Jeff. He’s… well…”

“I’m her boyfriend,” he interjected kindly, giving her mother a warm smile to match that on her lips. Daria went nearly catatonic at his words, the world she just barely stood on after her breakup with Harry going out entirely from her. Her mother had somehow, in the few months that they hadn’t spoken, had made a complete 180. Complete with a boyfriend.

“It’s… nice to meet you,” Daria stammered, taking his hand in hers and giving it a lame shake. His smile only grew when aimed towards her, the aura surrounding him a familiar, bright emerald green. She’d never sensed someone’s aura before, but in the case of Jeff it was obvious. There was a certain healing property about him, centered in love. It was something she’d felt before but not understood, but at a time she couldn’t quite place.

“I’ll be going to let you have some time alone with your mom,” he said agreeably, scratching at the beginning of his dark brown hairline at the base of his neck. “I just wanted to meet you when I had the chance. I’ve heard so much about you.”

I wish I could say the same, Daria thought to herself. Instead, she nodded numbly to him in some form of absent gratitude. He said goodbye to Georgia, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek and headed out the front door. Now, it was just Daria and her mother. For the first time in a very, very long time.

“So…” Daria muttered, glancing around the kitchen with wandering eyes. The walls were now painted a pale avocado shade, complete with a new set of cabinetry.

“Jeff is in real estate,” her mom explained. “He knows a lot about how to make a place look a little more homey. I thought it would be a nice surprise.”

“Yeah… nice,” Daria breathed, going to sit down at the new kitchen set. Her legs felt like they’d been packed with a thick core of cement. Everything was so heavy, the lightness of the house in comparison making it all worse somehow.

“I’m sorry if this is all overwhelming,” Georgia Holmes murmured, taking a seat next to Daria at the table. Her hair had grown a few inches since they last were together, the bouncy, full quality returned to the roots. “Things are pretty… different around here these days.”

Daria had been waiting for this moment for eleven years. For her mom to finally wake up from the daze she’d been slapped into so violently, for her house to once again become a home. But now that it had finally arrive, she was nearly numb to it’s magic, only able to give her mother a weak smile when in reality, she wanted to give her the world.

“How did you meet him?” she asked quietly.

Georgia gave her daughter a small smile, the edges of her mouth only turned upward in the most secretive, playful way. It was like she was a girl again with a schoolyard crush, the youthful pinched color returned to her cheeks.

“Actually, in therapy,” she replied with a light laugh, almost embarrassed. This response caught Daria off guard. Never in a million years did she think that her mother would put herself through therapy, having never encouraged Daria to do so herself. She could hardly imagine her mother sitting in a circle and talking about her feelings, the feelings she’d only shared with Daria and Daria alone.

“His wife passed away a few years ago from ovarian cancer, and he had just made the decision to finally get help, the same way I did,” she explained further when Daria was unable use the words in her heart. “And then I was looking at a house – I was thinking of moving for a while after I started therapy, you know, to get the memories away once and for all – and he happened to be the realtor. He’s the one who encouraged to stay here, actually. He convinced me that if we fixed it up, I could keep what was left of my old memories but make an entirely new space to create some new ones.”

Daria was only able to nod in response. She didn’t know anything about this man Jeff aside from what her mother had just told her, but something about him was purely good and she could feel it. Having the good heart to encourage her mother to move forward but not forget was what she had been trying to do all along, but for whatever reason was unable to. Despite the fact that she was caught off guard by his presence, and a little stung at seeing her mother with another man, she was accepting in knowing that it was right.

They were quiet for a while as they glanced around their surroundings, from the new stainless steel appliances to the new drapery in the living room across from them. Daria wished she could have ever known that Georgia had been happy this whole time rather than feeling guilty about having abandoned her. She wished she could have been there to watch it happen.

“Why didn’t you ever call again?” Daria finally questioned in her smallest voice. Georgia’s bright face turned sad at her daughter’s words, a mixture of embarrassment and dejection appearing on her features.

“Because I realized I was weighing you down,” Georgia said with a sigh, tears forming in her eyes. “I spent so long being mad after you left and when we talked, you finally opened my eyes to how I had been acting. I decided that I would leave you alone until you were ready to talk to me again, but that phone call never came.”

Daria ached at the thought of hurting her mother the way she apparently did. She wished there was any possibility that she could have known that if she had just called, things would have been okay. It turned out that her mother was just trying to respect her new life, she had finally let go of Daria and allowed her to be happy, she had sacrificed her relationship with Daria because she thought that was what Daria wanted – and Daria had made no moves to prove otherwise.

“I only decided to become happy because I saw how happy you were,” Georgia managed to choke out, through a gasp of tears. “It hurt at first, but seeing you in the tabloids with Harry and your friends showed me that there was a life out there for you that made you happy. And there had to be a life out there for me that would make me happy too.”

At that moment, Daria’s eyes began to well with tears too.“So I guess in the end, you were right,” Georgia continued, a weak smile appearing on her lips. “Just the way you always are. I always thought I was the one supposed to be teaching you, but you’ve always been the one teaching me.”

She reached out and took Daria’s hand, and immediately Daria could feel herself forgiving her mother. “And I’m so sorry for not having been here for you all this time. I wish I could take back all those years and be the mother you deserved. I’m hoping now we can have a second chance at doing this all right.”

“Oh, but Mom, I love you,” Daria replied through a stroke of tears, wiping at her cheeks to brush them away. “I did everything I ever did because I love you. I think it may be too late for second chances. But the way you raised me made me the person I am today, and I think I’m starting to like that person. So maybe instead of a second chance, we can move forward.”

Georgia’s smile grew. “Moving forward sounds fantastic.”

It wouldn’t be instantaneous, and it may not even happen at a normal pace. It could take weeks, or months, or even years. But Daria and Georgia Holmes would move forward. They were Alan’s girls, after all. It would be what he wanted.

“How are things with Harry?” Georgia asked, trying to lighten the mood unknowingly. “Is he handling your move home well?”

The happy tears flowing from Daria’s eyes abruptly turned to sad tears. “Oh…” she breathed, pushing stray strands from her top knot behind her ear with a sniff. “He…. He broke up with me.”

“Oh, sweetheart.”

And for the first time in a long time, Daria cried on her mother, and her mother was the steady rock in the storm. For so long, the roles had been reversed. Finally, things were set straight in their home; mother cradling her crying daughter as she suffered her very first heartbreak.



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