Tilly bristled. "We encouraged you to do well."
"But not too well. That's just showing off, right? It was like you were all embarrassed to have a brainy kid in the family, but at the same time, you acted like I wasn't capable of being anything else. So basically you put me in a box and then punished me for being there. And God forbid I had the nerve to stray from my box."
"What's all this talk about boxes?" her mother asked with a furrowed brow.
"I feel sorry for Owen already," Alexis said. "He's only four and you're doing the same thing to him. Imagine what he'll feel when he's fourteen."
"Or thirty-five?" Tilly asked.
"You made me feel like I didn't belong, not here and certainly not as part of this family," she admitted hotly. "What can I say? You wore me down."
"So the MacAdams are a box-wielding bunch of degenerates who reject any family members displaying signs of brain activity. Is that your opinion?"
As Alexis expected, her mother did not grasp her daughter's point of view.
"Not exactly…"
"Well, you're a big shot corporate lawyer now," Tilly shot back, her face and neck flushed with anger. "What do you care what the little folks think?"
"Stop with the big shot lawyer crap, Mom," she spat. "I actually hate my job."
Tilly blinked. "You do?"
"See? You're surprised. You think a cold, heartless job suits me perfectly." Alexis leapt off the bed in frustration. "You don't even know me." She trailed off, fighting back tears.
"So it's our fault that you hate your job?" Tilly snapped. "I guess it's our fault that you no longer seem to have a husband. Is this some kind of early mid-life crisis?"
Alexis grimaced. "I'm trying my best to explain myself to you, Mom. To share how I feel. Do you have any idea how hard this is for me?"
"Sounds like blame to me." Tilly's thin lips clamped together like a petulant child's. She didn't want to hear anymore. She was thankful her husband wasn't around for this nonsense. Greg would've hit the roof.
Alexis shook her head sadly. "I don't think you want to know. You would rather assume, the way you have always assumed things about me. You never wanted to know the real me. Why bother when you already have your own version of me, right?"
Refusing to cry in front of her mother, Alexis couldn't escape the room fast enough. Tilly stared blankly at the empty doorway, wondering where she went wrong.
When Tilly walked into the kitchen two hours later, her eyes red with emotion and fatigue, she stopped short. On the countertop rested the completed Good