I buttered a yeasty white roll. “It’s complicated.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Her hopeful, sad eyes made me feel obligated to tell her. “He knew his grandmother had O’ma’s necklace the entire time. And he didn’t tell me—what?”
Mom looked appalled. “You broke up with him over anecklace?”
“No! Notoverthe necklace. It was more—he didn’ttellme. He lied.”
“Did he lie, or did he not bring it up?”
“Mom, it’s the same thing!”
She cut into her salmon. “Well, honey, I think it’s a shame if you end something so important because of a necklace.”
“Mom!”
“Did he want to break up, too?”
I stared at her, furious. “You’re supposed to be onmyside.”
“I am! Of course I am. But you liked him so much.”
“It doesn’t even matter. I’m being practical. He’s going to college.”
“Don’t be practical! When did I ever teach you to be practical?”
“Um, I’m literally only allowed to go to a state school or somewhere I get a full ride because you refuse to let me graduate with student loans.”
“Okay, yes, but—”
“Practical!”My voice rose a little too high.
She stared at me, then held up her hands. “Okay.”
“Okay, we can move on?”
“Of course.”
Of course, we couldn’t really. Several hours later, when we’d retreated to her hotel room and were watching TV, she brought it up again. “We should talk about why this necklace matters so much to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t understand how you became so obsessed with an object.Why do you care so much about material things? Did I make you? How? It’s not one of my values.”
“God, Mom, it’s not aboutmaterial things. This necklace—it was O’ma’s.”
“But it’s just an object.”
“It was an important one! She cared about it! Why can’t I care?”
“Of course you can care. But you care so much, I worry you’ll hurt yourself. You throw yourself so hard into something like this, and it ends up upsetting you. Why can’t you let it wash over you instead of fixating on it? Why would you let a necklace ruin a relationship?”
“It was the principle of the thing. It was because helied. It was because—”
Because I was too damn proud?
Because he hadn’t fought for me, while he’d always made it clear he’d fight for what mattered to him?
