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Authors: Leigh Himes
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corner, eager to further examine my in-laws. Alex’s sister was Aubyn, much younger and even more patrician looking than her brother. She was tall, ballerina thin, and very pretty, but her preppy pink sweater and plain black pants made her look matronly, dull. Her eyes were just as azure as my husband’s, and her chestnut hair was thick and glossy, piled on her head like a Gibson Girl painting come to life.
She could use a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a hair out of place,
I thought as I took a seat beside her on a long leather bench. When she rose and walked off just seconds after I sat down, I began to understand our relationship. She hated me.
Alex’s mother, Mirabelle, on the other hand, showed only sheer delight in all her guests, including me, treating each of us with warmth and rapt attention. She had dark hair like her children, but hers had touches of silver and was cut in a soft bob that curled up under her chin. Her skin was smooth and rosy, suggesting she wasn’t above a good facial or two, but with enough laugh lines to indicate she viewed Botox as vulgar. An impeccably tailored suit accentuated her petite frame. Her shoes were stylish but not too high; her jewelry was expensive but tasteful; and her hair shone as if it had been brushed with a good fifty strokes.
I watched her move from group to group, making each person feel welcome with her direct gaze, easy smile, and quick wit, socialskills no doubt honed with decades of practice. With no patriarch around, I deduced Mirabelle was used to being the sun around which this family orbited. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was mesmerizing.
Not only that, but she was so different from my “other” mother-in-law. I couldn’t help but think of tonight compared to the first night I met Jimmy’s parents. That night there were certainly no staff, no suits, no shrimp tower.
It began with Jimmy driving me home after our first night together, which I would have liked to call a date but was really a one-night-into-the-next-day stand. I’d met Jimmy at his brother’s bar in Bryn Mawr when Jules and I snuck out of a client event early and hightailed it across the street. Though this was certainly not a detail I was proud of or planned to tell our children, I had spent the entire night and the next morning and afternoon with Jimmy in his cluttered one-bedroom apartment above the health food store in Ardmore. I remember it smelled like patchouli and peppermint, the scents making our drunken sexcapade seem more exotic than it was.
That afternoon, my clothes slightly rumpled from twenty-four hours of wear, Jimmy had insisted on stopping by his parents’ house to pick something up. They lived in Upper Darby, a working-class neighborhood below the Main Line that was on the way back to my apartment in the city. After being stuck behind a trolley for fifteen minutes, we turned onto a narrow street of tiny row homes, their identical brick facades interrupted only by alternating Flyers, Eagles, and Phillies flags.
“I’ll wait in the car,” I told him as we pulled up to a tidy house with a white metal fence and overflowing window boxes. A painted sign marked “
Fáilte
” hung instead of a wreath on the door. As Jimmy shoehorned his truck into a tiny spot effortlessly, then jumped out, Islumped in the seat so no one could see me. He went inside but then burst back outside a few moments later. Next thing I knew, he was opening my door and pulling me out.
“My mom saw you from the window and is insisting you stay for dinner,” he said. Mortified, I yanked back my arm and scrunched down even further.
“Don’t try to hide from her; she won’t take no for an answer,” he said, laughing. “She has a radar for any female within a hundred feet of our house.”
I cringed and shook my head, wanting to disappear into the upholstery.
“Why don’t you have mercy on a mom of four boys and come in?” Jimmy begged.
“Oh God, no!” I remained immobile, but my
She could use a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a hair out of place,
I thought as I took a seat beside her on a long leather bench. When she rose and walked off just seconds after I sat down, I began to understand our relationship. She hated me.
Alex’s mother, Mirabelle, on the other hand, showed only sheer delight in all her guests, including me, treating each of us with warmth and rapt attention. She had dark hair like her children, but hers had touches of silver and was cut in a soft bob that curled up under her chin. Her skin was smooth and rosy, suggesting she wasn’t above a good facial or two, but with enough laugh lines to indicate she viewed Botox as vulgar. An impeccably tailored suit accentuated her petite frame. Her shoes were stylish but not too high; her jewelry was expensive but tasteful; and her hair shone as if it had been brushed with a good fifty strokes.
I watched her move from group to group, making each person feel welcome with her direct gaze, easy smile, and quick wit, socialskills no doubt honed with decades of practice. With no patriarch around, I deduced Mirabelle was used to being the sun around which this family orbited. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was mesmerizing.
Not only that, but she was so different from my “other” mother-in-law. I couldn’t help but think of tonight compared to the first night I met Jimmy’s parents. That night there were certainly no staff, no suits, no shrimp tower.
It began with Jimmy driving me home after our first night together, which I would have liked to call a date but was really a one-night-into-the-next-day stand. I’d met Jimmy at his brother’s bar in Bryn Mawr when Jules and I snuck out of a client event early and hightailed it across the street. Though this was certainly not a detail I was proud of or planned to tell our children, I had spent the entire night and the next morning and afternoon with Jimmy in his cluttered one-bedroom apartment above the health food store in Ardmore. I remember it smelled like patchouli and peppermint, the scents making our drunken sexcapade seem more exotic than it was.
That afternoon, my clothes slightly rumpled from twenty-four hours of wear, Jimmy had insisted on stopping by his parents’ house to pick something up. They lived in Upper Darby, a working-class neighborhood below the Main Line that was on the way back to my apartment in the city. After being stuck behind a trolley for fifteen minutes, we turned onto a narrow street of tiny row homes, their identical brick facades interrupted only by alternating Flyers, Eagles, and Phillies flags.
“I’ll wait in the car,” I told him as we pulled up to a tidy house with a white metal fence and overflowing window boxes. A painted sign marked “
Fáilte
” hung instead of a wreath on the door. As Jimmy shoehorned his truck into a tiny spot effortlessly, then jumped out, Islumped in the seat so no one could see me. He went inside but then burst back outside a few moments later. Next thing I knew, he was opening my door and pulling me out.
“My mom saw you from the window and is insisting you stay for dinner,” he said. Mortified, I yanked back my arm and scrunched down even further.
“Don’t try to hide from her; she won’t take no for an answer,” he said, laughing. “She has a radar for any female within a hundred feet of our house.”
I cringed and shook my head, wanting to disappear into the upholstery.
“Why don’t you have mercy on a mom of four boys and come in?” Jimmy begged.
“Oh God, no!” I remained immobile, but my
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