“I wouldn’t let you,” said Matthew. “I wouldn’t do it to Fee. She doesn’t even like Mum.”
“Well, she doesn’t dislike her,” said Emma. “She just hardly knows her, that’s all.”
“She hardly knows her,” said Matthew, “because Mum hasn’t made the slightest effort to be sociable. Dad’s gone out of his way to make friends, and I know that both of your parents appreciate that.” Andrew and David, indeed, had bonded to what Lulu described as an alarming degree, over a shared sense of humor and what all their offspring agreed were disproportionately happy memories of the music of the Woodstock era. “Fee really doesn’t like Mum, you know,” he said. “Her eyes do that glassy thing every time I mention her, and she sort of sets her cheeks to look polite. It’s okay, Emma, I’ve known forever that I’ve got a difficult mother. Dad’s fine, and one out of two is better than none.”
“I feel sorry for Caroline,” repeated Emma. “She’s coming all alone to a city she hates just to see her only son get married, and she’s going to spend the wedding day in the same room as a man she has all this resentment about, watching him be much friendlier with our family than she is. I’d be feeling terrible if I were her. We’ll have to make a big fuss of her when she comes, to make sure she feels special. Have you asked her yet to Mom and Dad’s on the Friday?”
On the night before the wedding, Fee was giving a family dinner for Aunt Amy and their cousin Susan from Boston.
“Ohhh.” Matthew sighed. “Are you sure you want her there? She’ll complain about London, and make comments about Lulu’s hair, and get that disapproving look when Lulu and Sophie start to crack jokes, and I know she’ll find a way to work in her All Americans Are Hopelessly Superficial speech, and it’ll be a mess. Don’t get me wrong, Emma, she’s my mother and I love her, but let’s not sugarcoat the fact that she can be pretty much a pain sometimes.”
“Two words, Matthew,” she told him, “on the subject of painlike relations. Aunt Amy.”
He thought, and then smiled. “You’ve got a point,” he agreed. “And I suppose we can’t exactly let Mum fend for herself for the night. Okay, I’ll do you a deal. You do damage control on Mum, make sure she’s happy and taken care of and doesn’t misbehave too terribly, and I’ll do the same for Aunt Amy, and with a bit of luck we might avoid bloodshed.”
“Deal,” agreed Emma. “I do think we work well together,” she added, reaching across the table for a coffee-flavored kiss.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said to her mother the next day over Sunday brunch. “But Matthew and I have invited Caroline to dinner the night before the wedding. She’s not the easiest woman in the world, but she’ll only be here for Friday and Saturday night, so we sort of have to see her.”