Prompt: Write a story about forgiveness

​I brought up the invitation carefully, reluctantly. I wasn’t looking forward to spoiling her mood and the good day we’d both been having.

Our tomatoes, kale and carnations sat in a bag at her feet. She looked radiant, sipping her iced coffee with her hair falling toward her face and the shadows from the tree above us dancing across her freckles. I didn’t want to watch her face drop, but I knew I’d put it off long enough.

“So, my mom’s birthday is coming up next week. I think she’s hosting a dinner on Saturday that she’d love us to join.”

She shifted in her chair a bit and stared down at her fingers to pick at a hangnail. “Yeah, sure we can go,” she said. But all the lightness she had carried in her voice that day had slipped away, her grey words thudded on the table. I watched as a drop of blood swelled by her cuticle.

I knew her relationship with her mother had frayed over the years, but it wasn’t quite realistic to pretend that mine didn’t exist. It was made particularly difficult by my mom’s enthusiasm when it came to inviting her to things.

She had never forgiven her own mother for how she’d reacted when she came out. While mine was calling us on our anniversary and asking me what Veronica might like for her Christmas gift this year, hers simply pretended I didn’t exist.

I was the first woman V had introduced to her parents. Her mother was warm, welcoming and lovely when I met her, but as soon as the nature of our relationship was revealed, her disposition changed. 

"Veronica, can you please help me in the kitchen," she'd curtly responded, slicing through the joy V had tried to project when she'd said "girlfriend" and smiled at me.

From my spot on the couch, I'd stared at the fireplace with my hands in my lap, pretending not to hear the arguing that had emerged from the room behind me. Her father coughed from his chair adjacent to the couch and grabbed a newspaper from the wicker basket beside him. 

On the mantel was a portrait of Jesus, an ornate, standing gold cross and a massive family photo with a gilded frame. Veronica and her parents wore matching black turtlenecks tucked into belted khakis. The woman I had showed up with looked nothing like the girl in the photo with braces, encircled by her parents' arms. She'd traded her barreled, blown out curls for a blunt bob years before I'd met her. 

When V at last emerged from the kitchen, tears had cut through her concealer. "Let's go," she'd choked out. 

I had hoped my mother could be a stand-in for hers, giving her the loving approval that she was denied by her own, but instead my mother's love and acceptance only served as a constant reminder of what she wished she had with the woman who brought her into the world. 

She had averted her gaze to the carnations at her feet, but as I reached across the table and gently placed my hand on hers, she finally met my eyes.
​
“We could go visit your mother if you’d like," I told her. "I know it’s been a while.”