None of Her Business

“Will you guys ever stop trying to control me?!” Ally’s voice was a thunder of indignation echoing through the room. That’s how her mother knew that talking was over, and fighting began instead. She reached across the table and tried to put a hand on her daughter’s arm, only for it to be swatted away as the girl stood up.

“Dearie, we only wanted to talk about it…”

“Well, I don’t want to talk about it. But when did it ever matter what I wanted, anyway?”

“Watch your tone, child.” Her father’s voice didn’t rise in volume — only in hostility. “Your mother and I have always worked to fulfill all of your needs.”

“You mean, to give me what you thought I needed. But I’m an adult now, and it’s about time you start considering what I really want!”

“But why would you want to get a second degree when you could inherit our family’s business just as well without it?” Her mother inquired gently in what she told herself was an attempt to understand rather than convince. But Ally wasn’t buying it.

“I already told you, I’m not ready for that yet! If you want me to get off your back, fine! I’ll move in with Steve, and you won’t have to take care of me anymore!”

“Don’t you dare even suggest that!” Her father stood up and slammed his fist on the table.

“Greg, please, let’s not get heated now…” But Clara was too late — Ally had already stormed off.

Despite falling asleep very late, Clara woke up early. When Greg came home, the two of them looked equally exhausted. All they wanted was to have breakfast together, as a family, the way they always did. But Ally wouldn’t even leave her room for a meal this time.

“If you don’t get out of there right this second, you’re not getting any breakfast at all!” Her father banged the door with his fist in vain.

“She always has protein bars and energy drinks in her room. I don’t think you’re scaring her much, Greg.” Clara watched his anger change its target as he focused on her. “And who lets her buy that canned poison in the first place, Clarissa?!”

“She’s full of age, and she earns a bit of money herself. She won’t wait for us to “let her” do anything anymore.” Clara knew that her calm response would only irritate him more, but instead of staying to hear his reply, she went to the kitchen and started preparing fried eggs with bacon. Greg always got calmer after eating.

“I wish I raised her to be more grateful for what we gave her. Or, should I say, what we’re trying to give.” He grunted after finishing half his plate.

“And do you think that would make a difference?”

Clara’s question seemed to throw him off for a moment, but he shrugged it off.

“Well, maybe she at least wouldn’t be hanging around with blockheads twice her age,” he mumbled in an attempt to recover some of his rightful anger.

“He’s not twice her age. They’re both in their twenties.”

Greg’s eyes widened so comically that Clara almost choked on her food.

“Yeah, ‘cause she’s 21 and he’s 29?! Are you agreeing with her now?!”

Clara didn’t flinch at his wild, frustrated hand gestures.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Well, you’re saying exactly what she would say! What’s that for?!”

“Because she’s not here to talk for herself.” Clara spoke quieter, forcing Greg to go silent for a moment. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to hear her over the sound of his anger. But when he spoke again, his voice was no less frustrated than before, albeit not as loud as it had been.

“Yeah, only because she’s too hard-headed to come out of her damned room! And you sound like you’re on her side all of a sudden.”

“Of course I’m on her side.” She paused just to enjoy Greg’s indignant expression before continuing. “She’s my daughter, and I love her. I’d say that counts as being on her side, even if we disagree on some things. Wouldn’t you say the same for yourself?”

She watched it happen then. Greg’s anger dissipated despite his best attempts to hold on to it, leaving him disoriented and at a loss for words. Not knowing what to do with himself, he got up and washed his plate. There were many more things she needed to say to him, but before that, she needed him to get some sleep.

Later that evening, Ally came home from wherever she’d been all day — she wouldn’t tell her parents anything — and went straight to her room, ignoring her mother’s greeting. Clara didn’t follow her. She simply put her daughter’s favorite apple pie out of the oven, letting the smell spread through the house. Soon enough, Ally was downstairs.

“What’s the occasion?” The girl looked rather perplexed, but Clara just smiled at her.

“Do we need an occasion?”

“You’re just trying to get me to talk to you.”

“And it worked.”

Ally rolled her eyes in annoyance but failed to hide an amused smile. Clara always knew how to kill her anger with kindness. It wasn’t always easy, but it was the only way to make sure the anger was really killed rather than simply suppressed. She made some tea, moving through the kitchen unhurriedly, and set two cups on the table along with two slices of pie.

“I still won’t talk to father. He can’t tell me whom to date.”

“You’re right, sweetie. He can’t. And he knows that, which is why he’s so scared.”

“Scared?” Ally raised a mocking eyebrow. “That man hasn’t been scared of anyone in his life, mom.”

“He’s not scared of anyone,” Clara nodded. “But he might be scared for someone.”

“If anything, others are scared of him. Not me, though,” Ally continued, not responding to her mother’s comment, although Clara knew she heard it. “He wants me to be afraid of him, but I know better than to think he’d actually do anything.”

“He’d be happy to know that his daughter has grown to trust him that much.”

“I’m not his daughter. I’m your daughter. And I trust you, not him. You wouldn’t have kept a man around for a decade if you thought he was capable of violence, and I trust your judgment.”

Clara smiled as she watched Ally finally eat her piece of the pie like an accepted peace offering. She might’ve still been throwing sharp words towards Greg, but her voice lacked its previous indignation. She would’ve almost sounded like she was simply stating facts if Clara didn’t know how much she actually respected her adoptive father. Were that not the case, Ally wouldn’t have felt the need to diminish his role in her life at a time of conflict.

“He thinks of you as his own daughter, you know that. That’s why he’s so protective. He feels responsible for you.”

“Well, I don’t want him to feel responsible, and I don’t need his protection. Why do you always have to take his side?!”

Because he’s my husband, and I love him — Clara thought, but she didn’t say the words out loud this time. She knew Ally would misunderstand and ask if that meant her mother loved Greg more than her, which wasn’t true at all.

“Because I want us all to be on the same side,” she said instead after taking a moment to think.

“So you want me to stop arguing and give up my dreams like both of you wish I would.” Ally concluded.

“What are your dreams, then?”

Ally scoffed at the question.

“Of course, you wouldn’t even know. They mean that little to you.”

“Your dreams mean a lot to me, Ally. But I can’t support them properly unless I understand them.”

“What’s there not to understand?!” Ally grew agitated again and slashed the air in front of her with her fork. “I want to get a second degree and have a love life! That’s it!”

Clara didn’t answer. She took a deep breath and sipped some of her tea, waiting until Ally reluctantly did the same.

“The university you picked is very far away,” she pointed out after a few seconds of calming silence.

“It was the only one where I could get a scholarship for a second degree.”

“And I heard that your boyfriend is planning to move to another state.”

“I might go with him if I don’t get enrolled.”

Clara sighed. For a moment, she felt a strong urge to demand that Ally be honest about her real intentions. But she had no right to, not when she herself wasn’t being honest about her own. She had a lot of time to think that night and realized something she didn’t want to admit. Something selfish about herself that she’d rather pretend was not true. But how would she connect with her daughter if she stayed disconnected from herself?

“Ally,” she started despite the anxiety, covering her daughter’s hand with her own and giving it a light squeeze, “I’m scared, too.”

“Yeah, right, I know. You and dad both think I’m too helpless to survive without you, so…”

“No, Ally, please listen to me.”

Clara almost never interrupted anyone, and now that she did, it made Ally go quiet with surprise. Clara continued.

“I’m scared not for you but for myself. You’ve never lived away from me, and… I don’t know how it will make me feel. You’re the only child I’ve ever had. What if you never come back? How often will we be able to see each other, if at all? I don’t feel ready, and I don’t think I’ll ever be.”

She met her daughter’s wide eyes. Crying in front of her child was never something she liked to do. She believed that kids shouldn’t have to deal with adults’ emotions. But in that moment, she had finally accepted that Ally was no longer a kid. The tears that dropped from her eyes were proof of that.

“Mom…” Ally’s expression darkened with guilt, but a spark of defiance broke through. “I can’t live with you forever.”

“I know that. But I thought we could at least stay in the same town.”

“Then you’d always visit me. You’d bring me food, make sure I take proper care of the house, solve my problems for me until I’m old…”

Clara’s eyes turned wistful, but then she saw the distress on her daughter’s face, and her face fell when Ally finished her sentence.

“And I’d never learn to take care of myself on my own.”

“Oh…”

A heavy silence fell over them, the weight of realization hanging in the air: this wasn’t about the university, and neither was it about Ally’s boyfriend, no matter how much Greg would insist that it was. This was about something else entirely, for all of them. And none of them knew what to do about it.

“If I promise not to do any of that, would you believe me?” Clara finally asked.

“It wouldn’t matter, because father would never get out of my hair about inheriting his meat processing factory.”

“And what’s so bad about that? Most people struggle so much to get a decent job these days, while you have one waiting for you.”

“That’s the problem, mom. I know I sound like someone who doesn’t understand how privileged she is… But, trust me, I do. I thought a lot about it. I tried to convince myself that my personal values don’t matter when such an opportunity is handed to me on a silver platter, but…”

“Your personal values?” Clara raised her eyebrows, and Ally bit her lip, as if she just realized she said something she shouldn’t have. But there was no going back now.

“Mom… Have you noticed how often I refuse to eat with you and dad? Ever wondered why that was?”

“I assumed it was because you were mad at us most of the time,” Clara shrugged, earning a scoff from Ally.

“That might’ve been part of it… But mostly it’s because of how often you cook meat.”

There was a beat of silence as Clara processed the revelation. It was true; they were a family of meat lovers. It ran in their blood on both sides, she thought. But maybe such things weren’t heritable after all.

“It’s not that I don’t like the way it tastes,” Ally hurried to add. “You’re both amazing cooks, but… I just don’t feel right about it. I’ve watched the documentaries about what the conditions on those farms are really like, and… I’m jealous of people like you who don’t feel any guilt about it. I’ve tried to be like that, too. But I can’t get rid of the feeling, no matter how hard I try.”

Clara’s mind raced with arguments and ways to change her daughter’s mind. The health concerns, the spiritual beliefs their family followed, the value of traditional food and even something about how the production of vegan products is bad for the environment — she didn’t even remember where she’d heard that one, but it sounded like something that would convince Ally. And yet, when Clara looked at her daughter’s anxious face, it dawned on her that she had most definitely heard all of that before. She probably spent a long time trying to find something that would make her feel differently about this, but nothing did. And if she couldn’t make herself change her mind, then how could anyone else?

“I see,” Clara replied softly, reaching out to take the girl’s hand. “So that’s why you don’t want to inherit the factory.”

Ally just nodded, not trusting her voice.

“I will talk to your dad about it. You don’t have to run from us in order to make that choice. I’m sorry we made you feel otherwise.”

Ally’s eyes glistened as she looked at her mother in disbelief.

“And what if I still want to enroll in that university?” Ally asked in a shaky voice.

“Then I can only hope you’ll call us sometimes,” her mother replied with a bittersweet smile. Ally stood up and pulled her into a tight hug.

“I will.”

“I broke up with Steve,” Ally announced over family dinner the next day.

“There you go! I told you, that dude was always gonna use you and then dump you once he got bored!” Her father roared.

“No, dad, you misheard me. I broke up with him, not the other way around. And if anything, I was the one using him, too.” Greg stared at her wide-eyed.

“How so?”

“Because I thought I could move in with him if worse came to worst. I believed he’d give me the freedom I craved. That was the only reason I dated him, and that wasn’t fair to him.”

Clara sighed, and her husband stared at the table.

“Freedom to make foolish decisions, maybe…” he mumbled, ignoring Clara’s sharp glance.

“You may think that, dad,” Ally replied calmly, to her mother’s greatest surprise, “but even if my choice doesn’t make sense to you, it is my right to make it.”

“I worked so hard to build this business up from the ground, in hopes that one day a kid of mine will take over and keep it running. But now it was all for nothing, all because you decided that your heart bleeds for farm animals now.”

“It wasn’t all for nothing, love.” Greg flinched as he felt his wife’s hand cover his shoulder. “You followed your dreams, and you achieved them. Now it’s time to let your daughter chase hers.”

Ally smiled at her mother gratefully, but her expression quickly dimmed when she saw her dad shake his head and get up from the table. She wanted to go after him, but Clara caught her by the hand.

“He’ll come around, dearie. You two are more similar that either of you will admit.”

Ally sighed and sat back down.

“I didn’t expect you to break up with Steve so quickly,” her mother added.

“He invited me to a restaurant, and when I said I no longer wanted to order anything with meat in it, he laughed at me and said that someone from my family can’t possibly have any qualms with eating meat. I can’t be with someone who sees me for my surname and not for… well, me. I love you and dad, and I’m proud to be your daughter… but that’s not all I am anymore, you know?”

“I know,” Clara nodded with a smile.

Ally smiled, too. Soon enough, she’d be away from here, doing her own thing. Not as a rebellious teenager, but as an adult taking responsibility for her life. Her mother supported her now, and her father just needed some more time to come to terms with it. What anyone else thought about her was none of her business.