“Oh, for the blog.”
“The column, Mom. In a paper.”
“Well, your little friend was extremely rude to me,” she says, changing the subject to the one thing I know she’s been dying to say. I’d loveto hear her call Tom my “little friend” to his face. I can only imagine what he’d have to say to that.
But I need to fight my own battles. I’m grateful to have friends flanking me, but I need to have this conversation myself.
“He wasn’t wrong, Mom,” I say, bracing for the argument I’ve been avoiding.
“Of course he’s wrong. We’re your parents. We raised you. It’s not a big deal for you to help us.”
“I’m happy to help you; of course I am,” I say truthfully. “But you can’t make messes with the explicit belief that I’ll just clean them up. It’s not fair to me.”
“That’s not—”
“It is, though.” I barrel forward before I lose my nerve. “I told you not to pull out tiles on your own. I even suggested a few contractors who could help you. I’ve also handled all the financial-planning stuff. But you don’t want my help; you just want to do whatever you want without having to deal with any consequences.”
“But, sweetie, we appreciate everything you do to help,” she coos, as though she can soften the issue at hand through flattery, like one of the Waldos coming to lick her face after they’ve torn apart a cushion.
“I love you, and I’m here for you, but you guys are also capable of thinking through some of your own issues. This isn’t something I can help you with,” I say definitively.
“Since you’re not in your apartment this weekend, can your father and I stay there?” she asks. “And the Waldos, of course.”
I sigh. She’s not listening. She’s probably never going to listen. But I can change my own behavior. I’m going to take Ari’s advice and start right here with doing whatIwant. I have to stop ignoring and obfuscating. I need to set my own boundaries.
“No, Mom,” I say. “I’m happy to send you the names of the contractors again so they can fix the tile properly. But I need to focus on my trip. I love you, okay?”
She’s silent for a moment. This isn’t ever the way our conversations go, and I’m wondering if she has to reorient some wiring in her brain that’s used to being turned off while she hands things over to me.
“Okay, honey,” she finally says, acquiescing in the face of an unknown variable. “If that’s how you feel.”
“It is. Thanks for understanding. I love you, and I’ll see you when I’m back from London.”
There’s so much racing through my mind that I find it hard to even attempt to sleep on the flight. It’s all churning in my gut as I deplane, jet lagged and loopy, Thursday morning into Heathrow.
I breeze through the airport, quickly moving through customs and then easily onto the Heathrow Express into central London. (Way to make New York and our terrible hour-long subway ride from the airport look extra janky. Thanks, London.) From the moment I land, every conversation around me reminds me of Eli, British voices and mannerisms surrounding my senses.
It makes memisshim.
I’d replied to Eli’s WhatsApp message on Tuesday and said I totally understood. I didn’t hear from him again—in either form of texting.
But it doesn’t mean I should stay silent too. If I’m doing what’s right for me, doesn’t that include letting other people make their own choices instead of me burdening myself to make them preemptively? If I can say no to my mother, at the very least I can say hello to Eli. He doesn’t have to respond, but I can give him the chance to know I’m thinking about him.
Fuck it, I’m going to text him. I don’t have to say I’m in London, and I certainly don’t have to mention Eleonora, but there’s no reason to not simply check in and say I’m thinking of him.
Nora: Hope everything’s been okay with your mom. Just wanted to say hi.
My phone pings so quickly it’s almost startling.
Eli: You’re up early.
Shit.My lack of sleep made me foggy enough that I didn’t even think about that. It’s ten in the morning here, but that makes it five at home. But before I can berate myself for being a weirdo, he texts again.
Eli: Scratch that.
Eli: I think the response a normal person would be going for is “thank you.”
I smile as the train lurches to a stop.
