Free I'll See You in Paris by Michelle Gable Page B

from chatting with a stranger in a bar.
    â€œHow have I never heard of you backpacking through Europe?” she said. “I mean  … what? I can’t imagine you doing anything that free-spirited. Mostly you’re all business, all the time.”
    â€œI did go to college in the seventies,” Laurel said. “We were all a little looser in those days. Or we tried.”
    â€œBut you graduated from an all-girls school with insane academic standards,” Annie pointed out. “How many ‘loose’ people could there have been at Wellesley? Or at Georgetown Law?”
    â€œThere were a few. And many more who were trying to be free spirits but didn’t necessarily pull it off. Ah, tales of misspent youth. Before you get married, make sure you have a few tales of your own.”
    â€œI still don’t get it,” Annie said, her mother’s story nagging at her. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to beat a dead horse but—”
    â€œYou know I hate that expression.”
    â€œHow come you haven’t brought this up before?” Annie asked. “How did you not mention it on the plane ride to London, or during dinner last night, or even over coffee this morning? You’re a nostalgic person. You get teary-eyed about horses and summer interns. Then there’s this book, which stirs up all kinds of bittersweet memories. I say this with all due respect, but what the hell, Mom?”
    Laurel inhaled deeply, as if to speak, then held her breath there, locked safely behind her chest. For the first time Annie saw not a rigid, rule-abiding horsewoman but instead a person with a past.
    â€œWas he with you?” Annie asked, the answer suddenly so obvious. “When you came through Banbury with your friends? Was he backpacking, too?”
    â€œWho?” Her mom blinked.
    â€œMy father. Who else?”
    â€œNo. God no. He was nowhere near my life then.”
    â€œThen what is it?” Annie stood. “What happened?”
    â€œAnnie, if you ever decide to have children—”
    â€œOf course I’ll have children!” she snapped. “Eric is dying to become a father!”
    Laurel frowned.
    â€œNot now or anything,” Annie added hastily. “But, Mom, we’re doing it. We’re getting married. You’re not going to talk me out of it.”
    â€œI understand that,” Laurel said with a nod. “Listen, sweetheart. Teaching your children to be their own people, to exist outside of you, is tough. You want them to avoid repeating your past mistakes but you’re also wary of forcing them to repeat the good stuff, too. That comes with a whole set of expectations that doesn’t work for anyone.”
    â€œWhich is why you didn’t mind that I majored in English, instead of finance like you.”
    â€œSomething along those lines.”
    Unlike her daughter, Laurel never would’ve graduated college without a legitimate career path. Not that fake researcher wasn’t growing on Annie. But when she first declared her major some two or three years ago, it was a half-assed rebellion, a test, which Laurel readily passed. Her mom put up exactly no fight.
    â€œAnnabelle, I’m having a very hard time with your engagement,” Laurel said, chin and voice trembling. “Eric is a lovely person but when I look at what you’re missing…”
    Annie thought of Mrs. Spencer, a woman who had had her own apartment in Paris at age twenty, over a hundred years ago. She tried to picture her mom at twenty but it felt like trying to read a book in the dark.
    â€œMaybe I’m not missing anything,” Annie said, to her mom and to herself.
    â€œMaybe not. Listen, I’m not a perfect parent. Even now I’m trying to figure things out. I want you to be independent. I want you to see the world and experience the awesome. But I also want to save you from the pain. These desires, mostly they