No.
If they wanted to ambush me with something already done, I would return the favor.
And I would do it somewhere my mother could not escape.
Somewhere her carefully built image actually mattered.
March sixteenth was her sixtieth birthday party at Hillcrest Country Club. Eighty-five confirmed guests. She had been planning it for months. Cream-colored invitations with gold embossing. A DJ. A three-tier cake. A slideshow of family photos.
Every person my mother had ever wanted to impress would be in that room.
I picked up my phone and texted my aunt Linda.
Linda Hartwell was my father’s younger sister, sixty-three, recently widowed, and the only relative who had ever pulled me aside at holidays and said, “Your mother isn’t fair to you, sweetheart.”
My message was simple.
Aunt Linda, I’m planning to say a few words at Mom’s party. Could you let her know I’d like a moment at the mic?
