My mother always thought I could do better and she never kept that opinion to herself. My father didn’t speak his mind openly, but he had never been Nick’s number one fan, even if they could come together over the Bears and Blackhawks.

When I walked into my parent’s dated, red brick row house five minutes before lunch began, I felt the dismal weight of failure settle on my shoulders.

As disappointed as my parents were when I chose Nick, they were even more disappointed in my pending divorce.

Love and happiness had never played a part in their marriage. They took vows, they made promises to each other and no matter how miserable they made the other, they kept their word.

It was embarrassing to them that they had a child who couldn’t keep hers.

Especially since my perfect brother Josh had married such a nice Catholic girl and their marriage was never in jeopardy of dissolving and, consequently, their souls never at risk of being damned. To ice the cake, my brother’s two kids were beautiful. Josh had a fantastic job and Emily, his wife, couldn’t have been a better homemaker.

I, the baby of the family, was still acting like one. My dangerous job, my failed marriage and my lack of offspring spoke for me. I had disappointed my parents. In every way that mattered.

“There she is,” my mother announced when I swept into the house, dropped my purse on the secretary desk near the front door and tripped into the dining room. My mother’s dark brown hair, which had streaks of gray that she would never bother to cover with dye, was pulled severely from her face in a bun on the top of her head. Her high cheekbones and pursed lips made my stomach twist with dread. I felt like one of my students when I called them out for missing homework.

I should be nicer to them, I thought.

No, wait. I had momentarily forgotten that I loved torturing them.

Apparently my mother and I had more in common than I thought.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I huffed, even though I was early. “Traffic was a nightmare.”

My father made an approving grunt. He hated traffic above everything else. If he could sell his soul for clear streets and green lights for the rest of his life, he would.

He wouldn’t even ask to read the terms and conditions.

Sign here, Satan? Sure thing.

“We’re just sitting down,” my mother allowed. Her hazel eyes flicked across the table and took in my appearance with a shockingly quick assessment. “You’re too thin. It’s a good thing you come over here to eat.”

I sunk onto my straight-backed oak chair and gripped the edges of the matching table that had been the centerpiece of my childhood. She said this to me every time she saw me during my divorce. Before that, it had been, “You’re gaining too much weight. You need to exercise.”

“She’s under a lot of stress, Ma, give her a break.”

I shot Josh a weak smile. He made life difficult for me because he did everything right the first time, but he always had my back. He really was a good guy, which was why it was so easy to hate him.

“She’s under a lot of stress because she puts herself under a lot of stress.” My mother thrust the bowl of green beans amandine at my sister-in-law, Emily, catching her off guard. She jumped a little in her seat and I had to press my lips together to keep from laughing.

I was thirty-years-old and hadn’t lived at home since the year before I got married, but my mother could get under my skin like no one else.

She came equipped with internal radar of what buttons to push to piss me off the most. Zero to instant-rage in less than thirty seconds.

It was actually pretty impressive.

“Can I have the bread, please?” I kept my voice evenly upbeat and pasted on a fake smile. If I didn’t provoke them, I could be out of here in two hours.

Nick would always come up with a code word before we walked in the house so that I would know when he’d reached his limit.

Rotten bananas.

Teriyaki chicken.

Winter is coming.

He would just blurt whatever safe word he’d prepped me with on the way over in the middle of a conversation and then jump to his feet as if he couldn’t live through another second of my family. Sometimes it had been in the middle of the meal. Sometimes he made it to dessert.

Sometimes he started spouting code words before we’d made it through the front door.

During our marriage, I had been annoyed with his desperation to leave my family. I wanted him to somehow love spending time with them, even though I couldn’t stand it.

Even though they were rude and unaccepting of him.

Over the last four months, I’d realized this was one thing I could have been nicer about. I missed his code words now. I missed his push to leave so we didn’t get trapped in an endless marathon of bitter family and snide comments. I missed his intolerance for how my mom spoke to me.

He had always been respectful to her face, but after we got in the car, he had always reassured me that I was beautiful, that I was successful and that I didn’t need her approval.

I hadn’t done the same for him and now I wondered how her snarky digs must have cut him. I wondered if he had needed my encouragement as much as I needed his.

I wondered if I had enjoyed his code words and sarcastic tolerance of my family, if we would still be together. I wondered if those small things would have fixed us.

Or at least kept us from breaking.

But it was all pointless now. Nick was gone and I was left to face my family alone.

“Take two biscuits,” she demanded. “You’ll never find another man with those cheekbones.”

“Cess,” my dad warned with his rumble of a voice. “Let the girl eat. She doesn’t need your instructions. I’m sure she’s got the basics of it figured out by now.”

My mother’s disgruntled expression argued differently, but she let it drop. Cecily Simmons was a force to be reckoned with. I had never been under a different impression. My mother had intimidated the world from day one.

But I had been born with something wild and uncaring. My mom overwhelmed me easily. I knew better than to talk back. I knew better than to start something with her.

And yet, I could not keep my mouth shut.

It might be some kind of disease.

I should probably get it checked out.

I told my mashed potatoes, “I’m not sure I want to find another man.”

My mom snorted a bitter laugh and I felt my father freeze from across the table. I didn’t have to look at him to know I’d shocked the hell out of him and not in a good way.

“Of course you want to find another man,” my mother insisted. “You think that now, but give it a few months or a year. You won’t want to be alone. You’ll get lonely and then you’ll see. You’ll know you need a man.”

As if my mother’s words weren’t damaging enough, my father chimed in, “It’s dangerous out there, Katie.”

Ladies and gentlemen, my parents’ opinion of me. Neither of them thought I was capable of taking care of myself. A man had to be part of my equation or I was destined to turn into a crazy cat lady that was raped and pillaged in her own home one night by the pizza delivery guy.

As if my future didn’t feel bleak enough… Geez. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

And obviously my army of cats would protect me.

“Come on, guys,” Josh interrupted again. “Enough already. She walked in the house five minutes ago and you’re already giving her a hard time. Let her breathe a little, alright?”

Both of my parents looked put out this time. I wanted to cry.

One of my nieces piped up, wanting more mashed potatoes and the attention, thankfully, shifted off me.

Josh had two beautiful girls that were as well behaved as children could be and still be kids. They whined too loud and they screamed like banshees when they got mad, but they were beautiful and lovely and so precious they made my uterus ache.