Chapter 6
I looked at my mother, and for the first time in my life, I didn't feel the old familiar need to shrink myself to make the moment easier for her.
"My little cooking hobby has fifty employees, Mom," I said quietly. "And I think Victoria came here tonight to have dinner, not to watch a family argument. So if you'll excuse me."
I turned back to Victoria, who extended her hand again, this time with something like genuine respect in her expression rather than mere politeness.
"I look forward to Florida," she said. "Though I have a feeling tonight's dinner already told me everything I needed to know about working with you."
"Dinner is handled," I said, shaking her hand. "So is my future."
I didn't look back at my mother and sister as I returned to the kitchen to check the next course. I heard, faintly, Diane Whitfield gently steering them toward the elevator, murmuring something about the party being a private guest list. I didn't ask what happened after that. I didn't need to.
Three days later, sitting in a glass conference room in Fort Lauderdale with Victoria Chen's signature drying on a two-million-dollar contract, my phone buzzed with a text from my mother. I'm sorry. Can we talk?
I looked at it for a long moment, the Florida sun bright through the windows behind me, my company's name on the contract in front of me, built without a single dollar or ounce of help from the family that had spent fifteen years calling it a hobby.
May you like
I didn't answer that night. I answered three weeks later, on my own terms, after I'd had time to decide what kind of relationship, if any, I actually wanted with people who'd only ever valued me for what I could serve them. We talked. It was honest, and uncomfortable, and slow. My mother apologized, really apologized, for the first time in my adult life. Sarah took longer.
But the kitchen door I'd always been pushed through stayed open now only when I chose to walk through it myself, and never again because someone assumed that was simply where I belonged.
