Free The Other Life by Ellen Meister Page B

hours looking at all the pretty Impressionists,” Nan said.
    “What is that supposed to mean?” Arlene asked.
    “Mom, stop,” Quinn said.
    Nan put up her hands. “Okay, okay. I’m done.”
    Arlene folded her arms. “Well, I’m not. I’d like to know exactly what you meant. You think I’m some sort of Philistine?”
    Nan cut into her turkey. “You said it, I didn’t.”
    Arlene looked as if she were about to get up and storm out, but her husband jumped in with a joke to defuse the situation. “Phyllis Dean, Phyllis Diller,” he said. “Who cares?”
    For once, Quinn was grateful for one of Don’s corny puns. It broke the tension just enough for the conversation to move in another direction, though the mood remained strained throughout the meal. Later, when Arlene and Don had left and Quinn found herself alone in the kitchen with her mother, she was still furious.
    “Did you really have to lay into Arlene like that?”
    “She won’t even remember it in the morning. Woman has the IQ of a rhododendron.”
    Quinn picked up the bowl of mashed sweet potatoes and started spooning the contents into a plastic container. “She’ll remember. She’s not stupid.”
    “Okay, right. She’s brilliant, just incredibly shallow. Where am I putting the cranberry sauce?”
    Quinn grabbed the small dish from her mother. “There’s no law against being shallow! Not everyone shares your intensity, Mom. And yet they go about their lives and raise families and have every right to be treated with common decency.”
    “That woman just rubs me the wrong way. Always has.”
    “Of course—she’s Lewis’s mother. She’d rub you the wrong way no matter what.”
    “There you go again. I don’t know why you always insist I have something against Lewis.”
    “Name one thing you’ve done to be supportive of my relationship with him.” She folded her arms and leaned against the counter.
    “I walked down the aisle at your wedding.”
    “Well. I didn’t realize it was such a big favor. Thank you, Mom. Thank you for not boycotting my wedding ceremony. Big of you.”
    “What do you want from me?”
    “I want you to admit that it drives you crazy seeing me in a normal, stable relationship.”
    “That’s ridiculous.”
    “Is it? Remember when you said you didn’t think I should leave Eugene for Lewis?”
    “I never said I didn’t think you should . I said I didn’t think you could.”
    “Your confidence is inspiring.”
    “I think I should go.”
    “I think you should, too.”
    Two weeks later, when Quinn finally relented and called her parents’ house, her father answered and told her Nan was still sleeping. Quinn worried that their fight had pushed her mother into a depression. She tried to remember how Nan had sounded at Thanksgiving. Was she talking fast? Had she seemed grandiose? If she had been in the midst of a manic episode, it was quite possible she had crash-landed into a depression. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
    “She’s fine,” her father said. “At least I think so. You know how she gets when she’s holed up in that studio.”
    “What is she painting?”
    He paused. “Why don’t you come over and see?”
    And so she did. But when she got to her mother’s studio, she didn’t think her mother was fine at all, despite what her father had said. Nan seemed lethargic and melancholy. She didn’t usually paint when she was depressed, but Quinn was still concerned. She dispensed with rehashing the fight they’d had, and asked her mother if everything was okay.
    “I’m just tired,” she said.
    “Are you taking your meds?”
    “Of course.”
    Quinn squinted at her mother, trying to figure out if she was telling the truth.
    “Isn’t a person allowed to be tired?” she asked. “I was up painting most of the night. Started a new piece.”
    “Can I see?”
    “Not yet. But I finished that portrait of you last week. It’s there.” She pointed to a canvas that was perched on her counter