I exhaled one final deep breath and tapped the green phone icon on my screen. The phone rang once, twice, then a third time. Before the mingled feeling of disappointment and relief could wash over me, my mother’s voice called over the line.
“Emma?” she called again, making me realize that I was so shocked to hear her voice that I hadn’t answered her the first time.
“Mama?” I replied, and it sounded like a question.
“I’m the person you intended to call, aren’t I?” she said without the slightest hint of mirth.
“Yes, of course, Mama.”
“Well…”
“How are you?” I rolled my eyes and my head drooped. I wasgonna chicken out. I could feel it. What I was about to do was an insult to chickens. I was glad King Richard wasn’t there to witness this.
“I’m fine, but I think the better question is, how are you?” Was she serious? She would know how I was if she’d answered the phone any of the times I’d called in the last month, or responded to any of the messages I’d left with Daddy. For a split second, I wondered if my dad had even relayed those messages to my mother.
“Well, I’m doing okay.” I cleared my throat. “I’ve actually called a couple of times and left messages with Dad.” I worked hard to school my tone so as not to sound accusatory.
“Yeah, your father told me, but I’ve been so busy at the hospital and with all of my charities and committees…” She let out a sigh. “I’m actually running late for a meeting, so I can’t talk long.” I swallowed a lump in my throat and my eyes stung with tears. Being the daughter of two high-achieving surgeons was hard. My mother was busy my entire life; as an adult, I’d wondered if she kept herself that way as a way to avoid me. As I sat at this table, though, I wondered if she was using her career and extra activities to avoid something else.
She’d known exactly where I’d been for the last month and why I was here, but she didn’t ask about it. And after my years of being conditioned to avoid the subject of Annie and my grandparents, I didn’t bring it up. I only had a few minutes before she would rush me off the phone with an excuse, so I had to act fast. It was now or never.
“So I’ve been asked to join the planning committee for the Harvest Festival…”
“So I take it you plan to stay there for at least another two months?”
“Maybe. Maybe longer.”
She let out a sigh.
“Emma, your life is in Atlanta. Your father and I didn’t work our fingers to the bone, spending money on dance classes, pageants, traveling for chess tournaments, tutoring, and private schools, so you could use your Ivy League education to plan corn mazes and hayrides.”
She managed to work in a guilt trip and mention my Ivy League education in one sentence.
“Well, Mother, I like it here. I’m learning a lot about myself.”
My mother scoffed and let out a high-pitched laugh.
“I swear, your generation and this self-care, self-discovery nonsense. Emma, you can bury your head in the sand—or the dirt, I should say—and pretend your problems don’t exist. I heard that Nina Laramie is considering offering you your job back, and a man like Teddy isn’t gonna wait around for you to… find yourself or whatever it is you think you’re doing. There is nothing in that town for you. Believe me, I know. Come home. Stop acting like a child and put your life back together—”
I wasn’t aware of the tears rolling down my cheeks until one hit the back of my hand that was resting on the table as I listened to my mother’s tirade. The only plausible explanation for her new insight into the state of my personal affairs was Teddy’s mother. She’d given up trying to contact me, so my mother was her next move. They’d always been allies in the fight to get Teddy and me to the altar. Starting the year after we graduated from Spelman and Morehouse, our mothers had been planning our wedding. As her rambling faded into a distant buzzing in my ear, I realized that I wasn’t crying tears of sadness or shame. They were tears of anger.
For my entire life, I’d let my mother push and mold me into the daughter she’d always wanted. I forgave her strictness and overprotection because I knew that she’d already lost a daughter. I’d pushed down my curiosity and pain over missing my sister and grandparents, but in that moment, I realized that nothing I ever did would be good enough for her. She didn’t care about my feelings, or how any of the events of a month ago affected me.
When I told her that I inherited the farm, she told me that what I did with it was none of her business, but that I should sell it and never look back.
When I told her that I lost my job, she asked me what I did to get fired and then asked when I was going to find something else.
When I told her that Teddy and I broke up, she said that we were young and would work it out.
She’d never considered how any of those things would affect me emotionally. Other people had mothers who would hold them when they cried and tell them comforting things. I’d never had a mother like that, and I probably never would.
“Emma? Emma?” My mother sucked her teeth. “Are you listening to me?”
“Why did we stop coming to visit Grandma and Grandpa after Annie died?” I asked in a low, steady voice that oddly didn’t sound like mine.
“What?” my mother spluttered, and I repeated the question.
“That happened a long time ago, and it’s none of your business. You were a child. You wouldn’t have understood.”
