“Mom.”
Nathan's voice wasn't loud.
That made everyone listen.
Laura looked up.
Nathan took the mug from my mother's hands and set it on the table.
Then he closed Laura's book.
She stared at him.
“Nathan, what are you doing?”
He pulled out the chair opposite her.
“Sit down.”
Laura's eyebrows rose.
“I am sitting.”
“Good.”
He took the seat.
“You've spent this entire weekend reminding everyone how educated you are.”
Laura folded her arms.
“So?”
Nathan looked directly at her.
“So let me ask you one question.”
She gave a small smile.
“Go ahead.”
“If you're so smart, why did you cheat your way through college?”
The smile disappeared.
Nobody moved.
A fork slipped from someone's hand and struck a plate.
Laura stared at him.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“Nathan.”
“Copying answers. Bringing notes into exams. Having your father intervene when you were caught.”
Her face hardened.
“Those incidents were completely misrepresented.”
Nathan didn't blink.
“Dad confirmed them.”
Laura turned toward Ronald.
“Tell him.”
Ronald slowly placed his coffee on the table.
“Laura, I told them what happened.”
“You had no right.”
“And you had no right to speak to Rose's mother that way,” Nathan said.
Laura looked around the room.
There were relatives everywhere.
No one was rescuing her.
She straightened her back.
“Whatever happened decades ago, I've spent my entire life in education.”
Nathan nodded.
“I know.”
“One mistake when I was young doesn't erase everything I've accomplished.”
“It wasn't one mistake.”
Laura's mouth tightened.
I stood near the kitchen counter, watching her.
For the first time since I'd met her, she looked uncertain.
Then she turned toward Mom.
“And none of this means she knows more than I do.”
There it was.
Even after everything, she couldn't stop.
I thought about the envelope upstairs.
Nathan looked at me.
“Rose.”
I knew exactly what he wanted.
I went upstairs.
The envelope was where I'd left it.
I brought it back downstairs.
Laura watched me.
“What is that?”
Nathan held out his hand.
I gave it to him.
“My fiancée came prepared,” he said.
“For what?”
“This.”
He pulled out the cards.
“A little general-knowledge game.”
Laura laughed once.
“You're serious?”
“You just said education makes you more knowledgeable than Rose's mother.”
Nathan placed the cards on the table.
“So let's see what all of us actually know.”
Mom touched his arm.
“Nathan, we don't need to do this.”
He looked at her.
“You're right.”
Then he looked at Laura.
“But she just insulted you because she thinks a diploma makes her smarter.”
The room went quiet.
Laura lifted her chin.
“Fine.”
Nathan passed out the cards.
“Phones away.”
A few relatives laughed.
One by one, people placed their phones on the counter.
Laura didn't move.
Nathan waited.
“My phone is in my bag,” she said.
“Great. Then it can stay there.”
For several seconds, she stared at him.
Then she placed her handbag beside Ronald's chair.
I handed Nathan the first question.
He nodded.
I read it aloud.
“What was the Boston Tea Party?”
Everyone began writing.
Laura wrote quickly.
Mom stared at her card for a few seconds.
When we compared answers, Laura's was correct.
She leaned back.
“Was that supposed to be difficult?”
“No,” Nathan said.
Mom looked at her own card.
“Tea protest. Boston Harbor.”
Laura's mouth curved slightly.
I felt my stomach tighten.
Maybe I'd made a mistake.
Maybe the game would only make Mom feel worse.
“Next one,” Nathan said.
The second question concerned a nineteenth-century novel.
Laura knew the answer.
Mom didn't.
Laura's confidence grew.
“Rose,” Mom murmured, “this isn't necessary.”
I looked at Nathan.
He gave me a small nod.
Not because he wanted Laura to lose.
Because he wanted everyone to understand what the game was actually about.
Nobody knows everything.
I read the next question.
“What does hardening off seedlings mean?”
Laura answered immediately.
“Letting the soil dry so the stems become stronger.”
Mom looked up.
“No.”
Laura turned toward her.
Mom continued.
“You gradually get plants that were growing indoors used to being outside.”
She held up one finger.
“An hour at first.”
Another.
“Then longer.”
She smiled.
“Otherwise the leaves can get shocked.”
Nathan smiled.
“The seedlings on your windowsill?”
“Yes.”
“I saw you moving them yesterday.”
Mom nodded.
Laura said nothing.
I read the next card.
“To check whether a shelf is horizontal, would you use a spirit level or a plumb line?”
Laura answered first.
“A plumb line.”
Mom frowned.
“No. Spirit level.”
Laura looked at her.
“You're sure?”
Mom nodded.
“I installed the shelves in my living room.”
She tapped the card.
“The bubble goes between the marks.”
My uncle laughed.
“That explains why my shelves look drunk.”
Several people laughed.
Mom laughed too.
Laura didn't.
I looked down at the next card.
“What percentage of Earth's water is fresh water?”
Nobody answered.
I didn't know.
Nathan wrote something.
Mom shrugged.
“No idea.”
Laura's hand moved toward her handbag.
I noticed.
Nathan noticed.
Ronald noticed.
“Laura,” Ronald said quietly.
Her hand stopped.
The room became very still.
She slowly withdrew it.
“I don't know,” she said.
It was such a simple sentence.
But it sounded strange coming from her.
I had never heard Laura admit uncertainty.
Mom looked at her.
“Neither do I.”
Laura stared at her.
There was no smugness in Mom's expression.
No victory.
Just honesty.
I reached for another card.
Mom stopped me.
“Three questions are enough.”
Nathan smiled.
“Five.”
Mom laughed.
“See? Apparently I can't count either.”
A few people chuckled.
Then Mom looked at Laura.
“I got things wrong.”
Laura said nothing.
“I'd get plenty more wrong if you kept asking.”
She folded her hands.
“But if you made a mistake in my garden, I wouldn't call you stupid.”
Laura's expression shifted.
“I'd show you what to do.”
Nobody spoke.
Nathan leaned forward.
“That is the lesson.”
Laura looked at him.
“What exactly was the point of this?”
Nathan didn't raise his voice.
“Not that she's smarter than you.”
He nodded toward Mom.
“And not that she's smarter than you because she answered something you didn't.”
He paused.
“You don't get to measure someone's intelligence by the opportunities they had.”
Laura looked down.
Nathan continued.
“My grandfather made sure you stayed in college after you broke the rules.”
Her jaw tightened.
“She gave college up because two children needed food, rent, and school shoes.”
Laura's eyes moved toward Mom.
Nathan's voice softened.
“You owe her an apology.”
Laura looked away.
“Not because she knows more than you.”
He waited.
“Because you've spent this entire weekend treating her as if not going to college made her less than you.”
The silence afterward was heavier than anything Nathan had said.
Ronald looked at Laura.
He didn't defend her.
He didn't correct Nathan.
He simply waited.
Finally, Laura turned toward Mom.
“I’m sorry.”
Mom looked at her.
Laura swallowed.
“I’m sorry I insulted your intelligence.”
She took a breath.
“And I'm sorry I spoke to you as though you were here to serve me.”
The words came slowly.
Mom didn't rush to comfort her.
She let the apology exist.
Then she nodded.
“Thank you for saying that.”
I felt something inside me loosen.
Not disappear.
Just loosen.
Because an apology didn't erase the weeks before it.
It didn't rewrite Laura's past.
It didn't suddenly make the two women friends.
But it was the first time Laura had acknowledged the difference between having an education and being entitled to look down on someone.
And then Mom did something I hadn't expected.
She reached for Laura's coffee mug.
Click here to continue reading: PART 4: The Woman Who Had Demanded Cream Finally Asked My Mother How She Took Her Coffee, and the Answer Changed the Room
My Mother Had Given Up College for Her Family, But One Dinner Revealed Exactly What My Future Mother-in-Law Thought That Meant
Part 3 of 20
