WHO: Anja and Eliza Weiss WHEN: Throughout their lives and Wednesday WHERE: All over. SUMMARY: Mother and daughter have not always seen eye to eye and sometimes have difficulty communicating. But not always. WARNINGS: Difficult family relationships
"I'll have the pancakes please," Anja ordered promptly and then looked over at her daughter. Her married daughter. It was just the two of them this morning, maybe as it should be, or certainly how it felt it should be, although Anja felt a bit as if Harrison's silhouette was in the booth next to Eliza - just unseen.
“Me too.” She held out her menu for the waitress to take. “With lots of syrup.”
They were her favorite food, something comforting her parents made for her when she was younger. Pancakes was one of the first things that she learned how to cook. Over the years she had eaten very different kinds. There were very few bad pancakes.
“Well,” Anja punctuated the disappearance of the waitress with their orders. But she didn’t really know what to say. She had promised Alexi that she would make certain Eliza knew things were fine, but they didn’t really feel fine. It felt as if she didn’t know what to say to her only daughter. Like she had when she’d tried to explain why Eliza would go and Alexi would stay with Papa. Or maybe even worse than that. That had felt impossible but they had been together and she’d been certain that given time she and Eliza would make it together. But now she didn’t really feel that way. Eliza had Harrison. Which, was how it should be. And Harrison was likely not the worst choice she could have made.
The only question she could come up with felt too little and too small. “How are you?”
How was she? That seemed to change in the moment and Eliza wasn't entirely sure how to explain it. The rush of hormones always seemed unexpected, overwhelming, until they subsided.
“I cry.” She answered observationally, as if watching someone else. And she was, vaguely, looking out into the restaurant instead of at her mother. “And I get angry. And everything feels too much. And I want a cigarette and I can't have one.”
Anja nods at the emotional ups and downs, she remembers those. There's a tinge of guilt then at her own emotional ups or rather downs, and the realization that she doesn't really want to make things worse for Eliza right now.
"It's better if you don't have a cigarette, but I can understand that it would be rather soothing to have one," she offers. Granted she's not the warmest nor most maternal person at times, which this week feels as if it's thrust into her face full force, but she'll try. She takes a breath, and reaches for the coffee mug they brought her, lifting it slightly before adding, and trying to smile. "But you're married now, so you do have Harrison, officially."
“I've always had him.” Eliza smiled slightly, but an honest sort of unintentional glow to it. She had known it somewhere inside the first time he had looked into her eyes. That fear tinged with excitement and curiosity, it had given him over to her as sure as anything else could.
Her hands found her mug. “He heard people saying I was trying to steal his money. So he figured why not make it easier for me to.”
Anja blinked. "Steal his money?"
“Yeah.” Eliza took a sip, watching familiar and unfamiliar faces in the diner. It was strange how few people there were in this town. “His trust fund.”
This did not improve Anja's understanding of the situation at all. Harrison had a trust fund? She stared blankly at her daughter, for once not just conservative with words, but completely lost from them.
It was a small apartment, and to Anja's nose it smelled, but she although she had a position at UC-Berkeley, she hated to count too much on the salary of it until she had been granted it for a bit longer than a few weeks. That meant that until she felt more stable, they would stay in the small apartment together. She looked down at her daughter and said more brightly than she truly felt: "And we're home."
The rooms were filled with boxes, pieces of furniture wrapped and set. It looked more like a warehouse than a home. A very small warehouse. She looked at the window, curtainless for now. “It's too sunny.” She commented, voice low.
"Well curtains will fix that won't they?" Anja replied cheerfully. Too cheerfully, again. She was trying too hard perhaps to make this alright when truthfully it didn't feel as if it would be alright anytime soon. "Perhaps tomorrow we can go and get some at the store?"
She didn't know which store, but she would figure it out. If they had to drive around a bit until she found something that looked as if it would have something, then they would.
“You can't put curtains in the whole outside.” Eliza sighed as she plucked at the corner of a box. “When can I call Papa?”
Anja bit down on her lip hard. She shouldn't take it as a personal affront that Eliza wanted to call Him.
After all, this was supposed to be amicable.
And she didn't want to separate her daughter and her father.
At least no more than they had already been separated by the distance between Germany and the United States.
"I think we should unpack enough that we have a place to sleep tonight, and get some food. Besides it is very early in the morning there right now. We should wait a few hours."
“I can sleep on the floor.” She commented, tapping fingertips to boxes. “Or the couch.” At least it wasn't another hotel room or airport.
The sentence shouldn't bother Anja as much as it did. It was sort of a normal thing to do the first night into a new house wasn't it? She brushed away the discomfort and smiled at Eliza. "I think there is a box full of blankets in the bedroom, so we could at the very least sleep on top of the mattress with blankets. Regardless, we should wait a few hours to call your father. Perhaps we should get food now?"
“Can we get pancakes?” Eliza sighed as her arms slumped over a box. Her eyes roved around the room around them. “They have those in America?” There was the smallest hint of a disgruntled sass in her compressed voice.
Pancakes arrived and that was enough to distract from conversation that did not seem to be happening anyway. Eliza occupied herself with pouring additional syrup on her stack. Maybe she would add jam.
Anja watched Eliza, and realized that for all she knew certain habits of her daughter, there were things she didn't know. Did Harrison know them? That was a depressing thought, but it seemed almost certain to be true. After all there had been things her husband had known that her parents had not. Many things, really, until there had been things he hadn't known, until that damaging awkwardness had turned into her feeling as if he were kilometers away when he was right beside her.
"Have you been taking your prenatal vitamins?" she asked finally because it was something to ask.
Prenatal vitamins. Yet another thing on the list of requirements a baby had to remind Eliza that she wasn't allowed to be Eliza anymore. Sometimes she wondered if her mother had felt that same loss. But she had already had Alexi, maybe she had just gotten used to it.
“Yeah.” Was the answer as she mused over the jams.
"Good," Anja approved gently. Vitamins were the least of the changes perhaps, particularly if Eliza would have been taking a daily vitamin already, although Anja suspected that she hadn't been. But it was still good that she was taking them - still necessary probably to the health of the baby. "And how is the apartment?" The money statement about Harrison still lingered in her mind.
“It's fine.” Eliza shrugged as she picked out blackberry. “We don't have much stuff so unpacking is easy.” it wasn't a forever place. They had an apartment back in LA. One they'd have to figure out room for Jack. “Depending on when filming wraps up now, we're looking at things for Jack.”
"A small bassinet would make sense if you don't think you will be here for very long," Anja suggested, and then wondered if her suggestions were even useful or wanted. But she couldn't not talk to her daughter. Well, she could, but it felt like something neither of them should want. "And then you could have a larger crib delivered to wherever you will be more permanently."
“Yeah, it'd be portable. We can keep her near.” Foil was peeled back and she began to slather her pancake. “I guess we'll have to figure out a nursery or something in LA.”
"Do you have space for it?" Anja asked the question, then regretted asking. She was afraid that it might sound judgemental and it wasn't intended that way. She just didn't know much about the apartment Eliza had there.
Eliza simply shrugged. It was a decent question. Their apartment wasn't exactly the biggest thing around but there should be room for Jack at least to start. “We’ll probably need to upgrade once she gets bigger. And keep Dash off the couch.”
Dash was a thing that came with Harrison, Anja supposed. Not that she had any particular dislike of him, it was just another thing that she maybe didn't understand. It rather felt that if they were newly married it should be just the two of them and Jack when Jack arrived. But she only nodded. Of course they wouldn't want to live with her, which was right, but Dash was fine.
She put butter on her own pancake, and then reached for coffee before she poured syrup. "You can keep her close while she's little at least."
“Mama? Papa?” Eliza whispered out to the darkness of the hallway. There were wet tear paths down her cheeks as she slowly stepped into the empty hall. No one had heard her, she had stopped calling out in her sleep. Instead now she just woke, gulping for air and frantically searching for monsters until she was brave enough to hide somewhere other than her lonely room.
Sometimes it felt like Anja woke up when there was no particular reason to, even if she needed the sleep for an early morning the next day she would wake up, heart rapid, and she would listen.
Tonight she didn't just listen, after a moment, she put her feet in slippers and she left her husband's side, and padded quietly to check on the children. She didn't have to look in Alexi's room, because Eliza was in the doorway, a shadow in the moonlight behind her.
"Eliza, my dear, what is wrong, why are you awake?"
It seemed important to be brave, to try and banish her tears away. But the tears had come in a soft hiccup when the shadows moved. When they parted it was only her mama, like spirit to protect her from the monsters.
Her arms went up as her knees felt a little like tremors. “Mama.”
Anja wrapped her arms around Eliza, feeling the tension and fear recede slightly as the little girl melted into her arms. "There, there." Internal monsters were not as easily banished as the imaginary kind, but she suspected another dream and its effects might be felt currently, but it would pass and Anja was determined that Eliza would not have to fear it. As she wrapped her up, she quickly scooped her up into her arms and held her for a moment in the hall. "What was it, little one?"
As she was lifted up Eliza wound herself around her mother, trying to hold in as tight as she could. Her mother was solid, real, not a ghost drifting through the halls of their home unseeing and unknowing. Her breath was shaky but she could smell her mother's hair. “You were gone.” Finally came out.
"No, I was here." Anja rocked her gently, as she slowly inched her way back into Eliza's room. "I was just in my bedroom with papa asleep. I will always be here if you need me, sweetheart."
“No!” Eliza clutched harder, limbs wrapped around tight to her mother. “I don't want to go back!”
She felt so terrified, and Anja frowned even as she tightened her grasp on Eliza just slightly. She was so big, and yet still so small. "I am right here, and I'm not going anywhere. There is nothing in your room."
“I don't want to be by myself!” Her face was buried against the side of her mother's face. “Don't make me!”
Anja paused, like a bird uncertain if it should fly away or stay put, she wasn't certain which to do. The stricter and more stern part of her suggested that she ought to be insistent that Eliza stay in her own bed and that there was nothing terrifying there, and yet, she couldn't help but think that of when she had been a child, when terrors had felt so completely real. She wilted, pressing lips to Eliza's forehead. "You must be quiet if you come in with Papa and I, Eliza, very quiet for Papa has to work early tomorrow. Will you go straight to sleep if I am there?"
A long, steady breath escaped Eliza at the soothing words as much as the kiss to her head. The iron grip loosened and she allowed her head to rest so she could look up at her mama. “I promise.” She whispered.
Eliza chewed through the piece of flat cake. It was not the best pancake but not the worst. Even a bad pancake was good in her opinion. Or maybe her mouth just seemed dry.
“We don't have a guest room.” She said finally, taking a stab at another piece. “But the couch is pretty comfortable.”
She wasn't sure why she brought it up. There was still the continued surprise that her mother was even here. Work had always come first. Work was most important. It just didn't seem like the kind of thing her mother would rearrange that for.
Was Eliza offering her the couch? Anja's fork paused slightly, but her gaze didn't come up to meet her daughters. That seemed unlikely, maybe it was Dash she was talking about - that seemed more likely under the circumstances.
"I think Dash should find his own place and let you and Harrison settle into married life," she responded, punctuating the statement with a bite of the pancake. Possibly not the best pancake in Washington state. It was what she would have told Eliza had she been offering her the couch. Outside of the fact that she was too old to comfortably sleep on a couch, Eliza was married now. She and Harrison needed their own life without her mother over-seeing it all. There would be routines and changes and shifts that Eliza needed to figure out with Harrison, and without Anja being the rock in the stream they would have to row around.
“We're not letting Dash move back in with us.” Eliza stated blandly, swirling the piece stabbed on her fork in the syrup pond. At least not right now. There'd be a baby. Probably eventually Dash would be at their place. It'd be fine. Just not now.
“But if you wanted to visit.” Eliza shrugged. “Hotels are expensive.”
"I'm still going to find an apartment of my own," Anja told her. "It will be less expensive overall. And Alexi needs a place." Part of her wanted to say to hell with everything and take Rhett up on his offer.
There was a soft catch against her teeth as Eliza tried to figure out what to say, how to phrase it. Because her mother didn't seem to understand. “No. When we go back to LA. If you want to visit Jack.”
Oh.
Anja did look up at Eliza then, and after a brief hesitation she nodded. "Of course. I will want to visit you." Not just Jack, although of course Anja did want to visit Jack, but it wasn't just her granddaughter. Although perhaps there was a flare of hope that Jack might be easier to navigate somehow - a ridiculous thought that was put in its place almost as soon as she had it. Anja had never navigated relationships well, she simply navigated them. "I appreciate the offer, of course."
Of course. But it wasn't an of course. Eliza never expected her mother to come. The strange dropping of everything to come up here. It was new, unnavigated still. Classes would come back up, research, projects. Her mother was always moving, always busy, and that was fine. Eliza would never want to stop her mother from doing what she was passionate about. Her mother had rarely stopped her either.
“Yeah.” Eliza too another bite and chewed and chewed and chewed.
"What did you say?" Anja paused, her head tilted towards her daughter. Although she was speaking in English, as Eliza had been, her accent was still almost certainly there, while what Eliza had said, had sounded much different. Like something out of one of the teen films she sometimes watched on the television. Had she been trying to mimic it so closely?
The eyeroll was almost palpable as Eliza managed to keep the sigh contained. “Can I go to the Friday the 13th marathon at the theater?”
Anja frowned. "What are the movies they are showing?"
This eyeroll was contained. Barely. “The Friday the 13th ones.”
"What are they like?" Anja wasn't certain if she liked the idea of this. They sounded like horror films or mysteries maybe, if they were mysteries that might be all right, but Friday the 13th rather conjured up not lovely visions, and Eliza was only thirteen.
Of course her mother didn't know what they were like. Eliza was pretty sure mama didn't watch anything that wasn't on Nova. “Stabbing teenagers. You know. Slasher stuff.” She mimed stabbed a knife in the air.
"I really don't think that's a good idea, Eliza. You'll get nightmares."
Her shoulders tensed. “I don't have those anymore. I've already seen them."
Anja looked over at Eliza. They felt like such an American thing. She couldn't say she was the largest fan.
"Are you going by yourself?" Not that it mattered, particularly, because she really didn't like the idea at all, even if she went with a bevy of friends.
“Nate was going to give me a ride.” He was only a year older and couldn't drive yet. But his sister could and he’d agreed to go with her.
"Nate's driving?" Anja glanced over, she hadn't thought he was quite old enough yet, but perhaps he had turned sixteen and she hadn't realized it. If he was a brand new driver she wasn't certain about it either.
“His sister can.” Eliza's arms folded over her chest. If her mother said no then she'd just sneak out. “She said she'd take us.”
"When is it?" Anja could tell there was a teenage battle about to begin, and she didn't really want to engage in it. There were a stack of statistical pieces for her next research article that she needed to start reviewing, and whatever her thoughts on slasher films, a marathon would more than provide her the quiet space she needed to work uninterrupted.
She frowned slightly. She needed to probably be more on top of what Eliza was doing, but…
“Friday. The 13th.” Eliza deadpanned, the words careful and slow as she kept any bit of a lilting accent at bay.
Well, yes, that made sense. Her daughter sounded American, really. When had that happened? "From what time? When would you be home?"
“It starts at five, we’d go after school. It’d wrap up around 1.”
"In the morning?"
“It’s a marathon.”
"Is this a normal thirteen year old thing to do in America? One in the morning feels far too late."
“I am a normal thirteen year old in America.”
Well. Anja supposed that was true. If Anja was gone the entire time, then she supposed she could get quite a bit of work done. She frowned. It was so many hours though. Was she being over-protective? There were moments when she dearly wished she could use the excuse 'let me talk to your father' for things so that she could have the time to think over it herself.
"I would want you to call me between films."
It wasn’t the best. But she could manage it. And maybe it wouldn’t be as fun as sneaking out but it’d make Nate happier. “Sure.”
"And I'll come pick you up after," Anja finally said. "I don't want you all driving home without an adult at that hour."
“Mama!” Eliza frowned. “Why can’t my friend take me home?”
"Because you are thirteen years old Eliza. This is not complicated. You should be glad that I am even considering you going to a movie marathon from five in the evening until one in the morning, when you are thirteen. I doubt your Papa would allow it and I probably shouldn't consider it." Anja really shouldn't consider it, and the words were as much for herself as they were for Eliza, but was it really so likely that Eliza would get into any harm at a movie theater?
“They’re just movies at a theater, Mama!” Eliza insisted. “I want to spend time with my friend!”
Anja turned to look at Eliza, brows furrowed, stern jaw, and for a moment she just stared at the girl, who was both woman and girl in front of her, and it was the strangest thing to look at, the flash of the woman she would be, still buried in the girl that she was. "And I said that you could, but I said that I would pick you up. Those are my terms, Eliza. You can accept them, or you can stay home."
There was the urge to fight, because she didn’t want to have to be picked up by her mother while everyone else saw. And she could sneak out. But if she said yes, then it’d be easier. Maybe her mother would see there was nothing to worry about. Her arms crossed as she attempted with limited success to not pout. “Fine.”
Anja bit back a sigh of relief, and instead nodded curtly. "Good." She still didn't know if she'd done the right thing or not, but it was settled regardless. "Now finish up your homework quickly, and maybe we can go out tonight."
“So.” Eliza looked at her mother for a moment before looking back to her plate. “When do summer classes end?”
"The tenth of August," Anja responded, punctuating the date with a sip from her coffee. "I have one class in the three week session that will start next week. I need to spend this week working on making certain that coursework is ready to go."
“Oh.” she quieted for a moment, the word hanging in the air. “Are you going back to Berkeley?” her voice stayed low, measured, quiet.
"After summer classes?" Anja looked up. Because if they were online, she didn't need to return. Although Fall would start, eventually. And sooner rather than later and she had thought she would stay, but she wasn't certain if she was really needed here or not. "I don't know - I'm still working through fall semester."
Through fall semester. Jack would be due in the fall. Solidly fall. She pushed hair behind her ear. “Jack’s due in October.”
Anja put a piece of pancake in her mouth. It gave her an excuse to try to figure out whether that was a request for her to stay, or something else entirely. Unfortunately, the bite was not nearly chewy enough to give her the time she needed. "I remember," she offered. "The fall semester is more rigorous, but with a combination of TAs and such, there are courses I could teach online, potentially. If the chair of the department is amenable."
She put her fork down, and looked up at Eliza. "Do you want me here, Eliza? You have your husband and…" She took a moment. "I'm not certain you need me."
There was a chill as the blood seemed to seep out of her face, ice on her cheeks as she looked up at her mother. Her teeth pressed shut to keep her lips still as she took a breath to calm this sudden, welling, rush of emotion. “You want to leave?” she asked, once she felt her lower lip wouldn’t tremble out of place.
Anja looked up, and her eyes froze on Eliza's face, and for an instant she could only see the little girl she'd held once to keep away from the monsters in the dark. "I didn't say that," she replied calmly. "I said I didn't know if you needed me here, or even wanted me here. That's not the same as wanting to leave."
“You want a reason to leave.” There was a quiet rise to the last word, that overwhelming feeling of wrong. But her mother had come here without being asked, why did she want to leave? Why did she want a reason to?
Anja frowned. "Eliza don't be purposefully obtuse. I don't want a reason to leave, that's not what I'm asking for." She sighed and reached for her cup. "I want to be here. I would not have turned all my classes into online for the summer if I had not wanted to be here. But you got married and did not wish for me to be there."
Her jaw gritted, teeth sliding against each other at the chastisement, as if her own fears had no meaning or worth to her mother. “I’m not obtuse.” she answered, a sharp intake through her nose as she tried to keep the words level and flat.
Anja frowned at Eliza's words and her town. This was supposed to be a nice breakfast. Had she somehow ruined it? She just wasn't certain how Eliza couldn't see that she had doubts about the fact that she was wanted and was not simply in the way. She'd not needed anyone there when she got married, and that had been supposed to be - Anja shook the thought off, and the emotions that still pushed up with it.
"Just tell me what you want, Eliza." Or perhaps they should go to the psychic after this, so he can tell her.
Her eyes prickled at the sides with the rush of emotion. She pushed the plate in front of her away, holding back the urge to shove it. Blurry sight focused in on the plastic wood of the table below. There wasn't an answer. She wanted her mother. She wanted to scream at her mother.
Instead she did neither of those things. What she would not do was cry. Eliza refused, biting onto her tongue so that the sharp tang of pain distracted from that urge.
Anja watched Eliza. This had been a lot easier when her daughter had been a little girl. She hadn't been afraid to say she wanted her mother, and she hadn't been trying to be a cool teen, she'd just said what she wanted. "I've already asked them to see if there are online classes I can teach this fall," she said quietly. "If there are, then I think I am free to stay." If Eliza wanted her, something Anja still just wasn't certain of.
“Okay.” Eliza breathed, though didn’t look up. “Good.” She didn’t know how else to reply. Because if she could stay, then she should. But if she wanted to leave, to go back to work like she always did, then she could do that too.
It wasn't as if Eliza had told her to stay, but perhaps it was enough. It would possibly have to be enough because it seemed that Eliza wouldn't actually say if she wanted her there or not. So maybe the equally important question was whether Anja wanted to be there, and despite the irritation of the marriage, and the fear that something similar might come again in October, Anja knew she did want to be there.
So that was simple then.
"Well then, we'll see what Linda can manage with the fall schedule."
“Thank you.” Eliza answered quietly, even though there wasn’t a reason to. It almost seemed like there was, like something had been given. On impulse she reached out across the table to take her mother’s hand, squeezing it tight.
The gesture was an acknowledgement and Anja's gaze snapped up to her daughter's face. She nodded. "Of course, Eliza. I'll be here."