“How can you say that?”
She shrugged. “Because of the curtains.”
I squeezed my eyes shut for a second.
“I’ll have them deliver groceries first thing tomorrow.”
“You can just give me the money, and I’ll—”
“I’ll have them deliver it,” I insisted. She couldn’t work with money, and I was worried she would spend it on something stupid again. Ryan and I had grown up perfectly responsible and capable of dealing with our lives.
How had it happened that my mom couldn’t?
I took a deep breath.
“How’s your brother?” Mom asked.
“He’s fine. The business is going well, and he’s busy.”
“Too busy to visit his mother. I don’t even get a phone call or a text, and he doesn’t reply to any of my messages.”
I didn’t answer her. My brother talked to my mother as little as possible. He hated her for what she’d done to our father. Maybe, eventually, he would come round. But it was still too fresh. And he had a point—Mom had really screwed up.
“Like I said, he’s really busy,” I finally said.
“And your father?” Mom asked. “How is he settling in to his new place?”
“I’m not going to talk to you about Dad. You know that.”
Dad had moved out of town after the divorce, starting over. We didn’t get to see him a lot now. But we flew out to him over Christmas or Thanksgiving and still figured out how to be a family with this new normal.
Mom shrugged. “Worth a shot, isn’t it?”
The kettle whistled and Mom got up to pour hot water into our cups. She brought the cups to the counter and added milk for both of us before pushing my cup toward my seat, and we sat down together.
“It’s not like I stopped loving him or stopped caring, you know,” she said, keeping her eyes trained on her cup while she stirred. “He was my husband. We were married for thirty years. Everyone thinks I’m this terrible person, but it’s not that simple.”
“I know it’s not,” I said softly.
“He won’t even take my calls,” Mom added.
“Just give him some time. And Ryan too. It’s a lot to deal with.”
“It’s been two years.”
“Sometimes, people need more time. It will be okay in the end.”
“Will it?” she asked.
I nodded. “It has to be, Mom. It can’t all be bad all the time. There’s good too; we just have to look for it. And wait for it to come around again.”
Mom sighed. “That’s the thing. I know I made a mistake. I know I should have seen the bigger picture or considered what might happen. I had it all, you know? But I didn’t really think about what it would all mean. It was all so in the moment.”
“How are your articles coming?” I asked instead, changing the topic to something a little less emotional. I blew on my coffee before taking a sip.
“They’re coming along okay,” Mom said. “I haven’t been in the right emotional space to work on them some more. Some days, I just sit and stare, and when I catch myself again, the whole day has gone by, and I haven’t done anything.” She sighed. “I don’t know when I’ll be in a better headspace again. I’m cutting myself some slack.”
I understood why she would be in a bad headspace. And taking care of herself wasn’t a bad thing. But every time she cut herself “some slack,” I had to pick up the pieces. I understood she was going through a hard time, but it put a lot of pressure on me. Mom had been out of the workforce for a long time. She’d been a stay-at-home mom, a woman who’d raised us and kept everything in check while my dad had gone out and earned a living. When he’d kicked Mom out for what she’d done, she’d had nothing to fall back on.