My mom chuckled, “I doubt that.”

“What do you know,” I growled at her. “I have a place to live, a job, and I like studying art. And I have an awesome boyfriend who cares about me. If you’re not going to help me, stop telling me what to do.”

“Are you sure?” my mom scoffed. “With all those naked young women around him day in and day out, it’s only a matter of time before Christos’ eyes start to wander. Then where will you be? Without a place to live would be my first guess.”

And like a bullet through window glass, my remaining confidence shattered into useless fragments. How did my mom manage to do that so easily? My heart skipped a beat or ten and my throat filled with porcupine quills as I tried to swallow a dry lump of dread that wouldn’t go down.

If I’d learned one thing about Christos since his trial, it was that he didn’t tell me everything that was going in his head. Was he thinking about the long term with me? Or was I passing fancy? Maybe he was interested in Isabella, or one of the other naked women he painted seven days a week. They were all gorgeous models. I wasn’t. I was just a regular girl from D.C. trying to study art. Why would a stud like Christos be interested in plain old Sam Smith when he was surrounded by supermodels?

No, that couldn’t be right. Christos had asked me to move in with him and had voluntarily hauled all my stuff into his house. That meant he was serious, right? He was in it with me for the long term. Right?

So why were my mom’s questions making me so nervous?

I felt tears begin to well. I needed to hide them from my mom or she would use them against me and go in for the kill. Before she had a chance to attack, I turned away from her and my dad to watch the chimpanzees to distract myself.

One of the older female chimps had walked over at some point and sat beside the glass only a few feet away from me. She looked up at me with the deepest, darkest, most compassionate eyes I’d ever seen, like she was looking into me, communicating on some primal level and trying to comfort me. She puckered her lips at me in a strange gesture. Was she trying to tell me something? No, that was crazy.

A young chimp ambled over to her on all fours and fell into her lap like it was his favorite place to hang out. He wrapped his arms around his mother’s neck and she wrapped her arms around him while making kissy faces at him. She began gently grooming him. He looked like he was in heaven.

I wish that mother chimp was my mom too.

“Christos isn’t like that,” I said timidly. I wiped tears from my eyes before turning to face my mom.

A maleficent smile curled her lips. She looked like the Evil Queen from every storybook ever written.

Oh, boy. I needed some ice cream.

“All men are like that,” my mom said victoriously.

Quick as a blade, I asked, “Is Dad like that?”

A flash of anger danced across her eyes, but she didn’t respond.

There was a long, tingling silence.

“Yes, Linda,” my dad said with nervous humor, “am I like that?”

My mom’s eyes widened noticeably in surprise. She flicked a quick glance at my dad, then chuckled and drilled me with her stare, “No, your father is not like that.”

Wheels turned in my mind, “Mom, how do you know so much about men? This isn’t the first time you’ve mentioned men cheating. It sounds to me like you’ve had some bad experiences? If not with Dad, then who?”

My mom was taken aback. Heck, I was taken aback. I couldn’t believe I’d asked her that.

Mom chuckled, “That’s none of your business, Sam.”

“Is it any of my business, Linda?” Dad asked innocently.

“There you guys are,” Spiridon said, walking up with an armful of water bottles.

“We got some ice cream bars, too,” Christos smiled, “in case anyone wants a snack.” He held one up to me. “Chocolate dipped vanilla with butterscotch filling. I thought you might like one.”

“Thank you, agápi mou,” I said warmly as I took the ice cream bar and peeled back the wrapper. I leaned against Christos while I ate my ice cream. He put his arm around me as he ate his and we watched the chimpanzees together. I was in heaven.

Christos was nothing like my mom wanted me to believe. The ice cream bar he’d brought me was proof because it was the yummiest ice cream bar in the history of ice cream bars.

My mom was such a bitch.

* * *

“When are you going to realize that you’ll never make any money as an artist?” my mom asked as she sipped her tea on the couch in the Manos’ living room.

Christos and Spiridon had gone out for dinner to give my parents and me time to talk alone. I’d begged them to stay, but Spiridon had insisted. I think he understood my parents wanted to talk to me in private.

“Your mother is right, Sam,” my dad consoled, like he was being nice and supportive. “It’s unlikely that you’ll ever make any money as an artist. If you ever hope to have a career, pay a mortgage and a car payment, you need to pursue a sensible career path like Accounting.”

I’d heard this argument a thousand times from my parents, and my dad had always provided facts and figures to back everything up. As a teenager, I had always believed them. Every time we’d argued, my resolve had crumbled and I’d reluctantly given in to their ideas.

I was done with that.

This was my world, not theirs.

“Look around you, Dad,” I motioned at all of Spiridon’s paintings hanging in the room. “You heard Spiridon yourself. He paid for this house with his paintings. What makes you think I can’t do it too?”

Dad said thoughtfully, “Well, for one thing,—”

“Ha!” Mom interrupted, “you think a few cartoons can compare to the paintings Spiridon has done?”

“I can paint!” I whined.

“All I’ve seen is your horrid cartoons of that degenerate wombat,” Mom cackled. “What do you know about painting?”

“I took an oil painting class last quarter, and I got an A.”

“I’m sure you painted a bowl of fruit or two,” she chuckled, “but any beginner can do that.”

“I’m no beginner.” I stood up and stormed out of the living room.

“Where are you going?” Mom snickered.

I stopped in my tracks. Minding my parents like always. Like their slave.

“It was always like you to give up easily,” Mom said. “Your father is right. You don’t have what it takes.”

“I’m not giving up,” I barked. I strode into the studio and picked up two of my best oil paintings. One was from my class and one was the calla lilies I’d done in the studio. I thought they were really good, considering I’d only been painting for three months. I shoved them into my parents’ hands when I returned to the living room. “See?”

My dad held the calla lilies at arm’s length. “This isn’t half bad,” he said thoughtfully. He hadn’t said half good, but my dad was never an optimist.

Mom sneered at my painting of sunflowers she held in her hands. “So? What is this supposed to mean?” she asked. “It looks like any other painting of sunflowers.”

“Exactly,” I growled. “It looks like sunflowers. And it doesn’t suck, like you seem to think everything I draw or paint does.”

She shook her head and scoffed. “There’s a long road between a painting of sunflowers and making any money.”

Dad set the calla lilies painting on the coffee table gently. At least he didn’t drop it in the trash. “Your mother is right, Sam. While these paintings of yours show promise, I don’t know that painting will lead anywhere for you.”

“Are you kidding?” I asked, my hands on my hips as I stood in front of them. “Look around this room! Spiridon has painted thousands of paintings and made millions of dollars. That sounds like a great career path to me.”

My mom smiled smugly and raised her eyebrows like she was the Queen. The Queen of Evil Bitchery, maybe. She said, “Bill, would you care to explain it to your daughter in logical terms she can understand?”

What, did she think I was stupid? I huffed and rolled my eyes.

My dad nodded. “Sam, what your mother is trying to say, I think, is that Spiridon is, well, how can I put this?” Dad spread his hands apart and a pained look tightened his features. “Uh, Sam, well, Spiridon is amazingly talented, and I think, if I had to characterize your skill, well I guess, you see, the thing is…”

Mom placed a stilling had on Dad’s knee. “Your father is trying to tell you that you’re not talented enough. You’re not a Spiridon, or even a Christos.”

CRACK!

That was the sound of my heart breaking in half. I was frozen in place where I stood. I couldn’t speak, or even breathe, like all of my internal organs had suddenly exploded into fragments along with my heart. I had the distinct impression that if someone were to cut me open right at that moment, they’d find a hollow person with small piles of red glass shards pooled in the empty feet. Those red shards would be the broken remnants of my broken heart.

Mom continued, “Not that I’d want any daughter of mine painting pornography for a living like Christos, but I have to admit, Spiridon’s landscapes are very good.”

I was so hurt by what my mom had just said, I couldn’t respond. I stood silently and gaped at the two monster impostors pretending to be my loving parents. They were evil. I wanted to run out of the room, but I couldn’t move when my heart was broken and my insides were hollowed out.

“I don’t know that I would say ‘not talented enough’, Sam,” Dad said quietly, “but it’s clear to me that Spiridon and Christos have both been painting for a long, long time. And I suspect that Spiridon had a large hand in educating Christos in art from birth. Sam, you’re starting late in life. You’re nineteen years behind Christos. More if you factor in Spiridon’s instruction. In my estimation, for you to pursue art would be an unsound business decision. Conversely, you’ve been surrounded by numbers and accounting principles since birth,” my dad smiled.