Mommy Dearest || Khamani & Emmie
When her mother had offered to take her out to lunch, Emmie had a bad feeling. Any time that this happened, she knew that it was because her mother wanted to tell her something where Emmie would be socially pressured into not freaking out and screaming at the woman at the top of her lungs. Like when Emmie was basically forced to take care of her and her father when Rose found out about her cancer. Or when Theo got arrested. Or any other countless things that Rose had decided on behalf of her daughter and Emmie was forced to go along with.
So between starting the conversation off with Rose announcing she didn’t want to meet Emma because she knew Emmie’s relationship track record and after the disaster that was Sadhbh she wasn’t counting on whatever was going on with Emma to last long, and criticizing Emmie’s design of the children’s room remodel, the younger woman was ready for her mother to just get to the point.
“So when are you going to pass the store back to Theo? I thought that you would have by now.”
Emmie blinked, not entirely sure that she heard her mother right. Of the many things that this conversation could have been about, this wasn’t what he expected. “Is that a joke?” she finally asked, processing the situation.
“Of course not, the store was always supposed to go to Theo, you know that. You were just the placeholder after your father got sick,” Rose continued, very matter of factly, “and now that your brother is out of prison, I don’t know what you think that you should stay in charge.”
“He wants to sell the store,” Emmie snapped, her voice rising, not even caring about who was listening, if they were listening, “And probably keep the money for himself.”
“Well then at least he knows his limits, unlike you Emmaline,” Rose snapped back, “it’s not as if you know what you’re doing with the store, that remodel was absolutely a waste of money, and the way that you let your staff talk to customers is horrible customer service. Your father would be appalled that you’ve gone on like this for so long.”
“You don’t get to decide what Dad would have thought because with how sick he is, we just don’t know do we? Maybe he would have fucking loved what I’ve done with everything,” Emmie snapped, not even caring that people were staring and that she was yelling, “but the store has gone up in profit every fucking year since I took over, and I’m not going to let all the work that I’ve done for the past few years be for nothing because Theo gets to waltz back in and take everything without doing any work or learning any lessons from his massive fuck up. So maybe you should be talking to him about getting an actual job then trying to steal mine so he can fuck it up too.”
“The store is not your place, Emmaline. It is your brother’s. It wasn’t when you took over, it won’t be in the future, and the sooner that you accept that the better,” Rose said, standing up and collecting her things, “But considering that your profits are doing so well,” the woman said, sarcasm dripping off of her voice, “I guess that means you have enough to cover lunch after all. But think about what I said, this wasn’t supposed to be your life, don’t keep trying to do things that you weren’t suited for, I’m just trying to keep your best interests in mind.”
A frustrated yell left Emmie’s lips before she finally became aware of all the stares coming from the other tables as she wished that she could melt into the ground. But she had to wait for the check, and her emotions just flip-flopped before intense rage and pain - and as much as Emmie wanted to cry, she wasn’t going to give everyone the satisfaction of seeing her do it. But the tears burned against her eyes and she buried her face in her napkin trying to keep herself from sobbing before she heard footsteps and felt someone standing over the table. Reluctantly, she looked up, and seeing who it was truly didn’t make her feel any better. “Shit,” she muttered, “how much of that did you hear?”
