She flinches like I smacked her. Maybe I did. Everything burns—?my chest, my eyes, the palms of my hands. My fingertips tingle with certain wishes dying out, others coming to life.
“Don’t you dare talk to me like that, Gracie. I’m your mother.”
“Then act like it! Fucking act like it, for once in your life.”
“What is wrong with you?”
“Really? Are you serious? Look at what just happened! You brought a guy back to our hotel room to screw with your teenage daughter twenty feet away, naked in a bathtub.”
She frowns but has the decency to blush. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Where else would I be? You left me alone with two dollars in a city I don’t know.”
“Grace—?”
“Please just tell me you realize how fucked up this is.”
“I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Mom.” I take step toward her, my voice so soft it pulls up more tears. Her eyes are on mine, genuine confusion underneath genuine embarrassment. I’m not sure which one is stronger. “Two days ago, you drove drunk with Eva in the car.”
“Eva is fine—?”
“And then you ran her into a tree. You hurt her, after everything she’s already dealing with. She’s not fine. And then you pulled me away from everyone who ever mattered to me. And then tonight with Tom or whoever the hell that was. And then, and then, and then. Where does it stop? How many bottles in the suitcase next time? How long until some boyfriend you bring home looks at me and—?”
“I would never put you in that position,” Mom says, her hands pressed to her heart.
“You have, Mom. You do.”
She folds her arms and shakes her head.
“Mom. This is not okay. I am not fine. You are not okay.”
“Why do you keep doing that?” she asks, her voice small and low.
“What . . . calling you Mom?”
She nods.
“Because that’s who I need you to be.”
She heaves a choked sob and closes the distance between us, taking my hands in hers and gripping them tight. The fingers half covered by her brace are cold. “I am fine, baby. We’re going to be fine. We always are.”
“No,” I say, so calmly it almost scares me. But it enlivens me too, fear of becoming this woman in front of me—?of irreparably losing this woman in front of me—?trumping the fear of ending this whole charade. “Look at our lives. You’re not okay. I am not okay. I love you so much, and I want to help you—?I do, but I can’t anymore. And I’m done making excuses for you. For what happened tonight. For the countless nights before this one.”
She squeezes her eyes shut like a little kid refusing to hear reason. “You are fine. Eva. Is. Fine.”
“No, she’s not! And that’s not the point! Do you even hear yourself? Do you hear what you’re saying about me? About the girl I might love?”
She startles and my words sizzle between us for a few seconds. “The girl you might . . . I’m sorry, what did you say?”
I can’t help but snort a laugh at her total cluelessness, but in that tiny moment, I know the truth. And it warms my blood in every good and shocking way. I’m not going to be a girl who doesn’t ask her boyfriend of six months where the hell his mother is. Not anymore. I’m not going to wake up one day and realize I don’t know my own daughter because I never asked, never listened. I’m not going to push people away because deep down I’m incapable of caring about them. And I’m not going to push them away because I do care about them. I’m going to love—?love boldly and carefully.
Starting with myself.
“Not ‘might,’” I say, taking a deep breath. “I do love her.”
She blinks like a hundred times. “Like, love love?”
