Her office phone rang, and she let it go to voicemail. Right now, all she wanted to do was sit in the quiet, processing and feeling.
And remembering.
She remembered being eight years old, sitting at the dining room table doing homework while her mother corrected her penmanship. “Your Gs are too round, Janie. You need to make them more angular. People judge you by your handwriting.”
She remembered being sixteen, coming home from school excited about making the hockey team, only for her mother to say, “Sports are for people who don’t have the brains needed todo something important with their lives. Why didn’t you try for the debate team?”
She remembered being twenty-two, calling to say she’d been accepted to law school, and hearing, “Well, I suppose it’s something that you got a place. It’ll be interesting to see if you keep it.”
Every memory was like that. Every moment of pride, achievement, or joy undercut by criticism, by the suggestion that Janie should have done better or been more, tried harder. And underneath all of it, the constant message wasYou are not enough.You will never be enough. No matter what you do, it will never be good enough for me.
Janie had internalized that message so thoroughly that it had become part of her operating system and the background hum of her life. It was the voice in her head that said she was failing, insufficient, and fundamentally flawed.
That voice sounded a lot like her mother’s.
But it had become Janie’s voice and had been for so long that she couldn’t remember a time before it. The same voice told her she was a bad mother for falling asleep when Chloe got into the medicine cabinet. It told her she didn’t deserve Hannah’s love. And it told her she should be able to handle everything—work, kids, marriage, and her mental health—with ease and without help, and definitely without ever admitting that she was drowning.
That voice was her mother’s true legacy. The inheritance her mother had already given her was more impactful than any trust fund could ever be. And far more negative and damaging.
Now though, Janie was done listening to it. She picked up her phone and called Rae, who answered on the second ring.
“Janie? Is everything okay? We’re not scheduled until Thursday.”
“I just cut ties with my mother.” Janie almost laughed as she said it. “Completely. She came to my office, and I told her I was done, that I didn’t need her, and I have my own family to protect.And I feel...I think I feel good. But also weird. Like I’m waiting for something bad to happen.”
“That’s normal,” Rae said gently. “You’ve spent your entire life in a painful relationship with your mother. Ending it is huge. It’s grief and relief, plus guilt and freedom all mixed together.”
“I don’t feel guilty,” Janie said, smiling as she realized she really meant it. “I thought I would. But I just don’t.”
“That’s growth,” Rae said. “That’s you recognizing that you deserve to protect yourself from people who hurt you, even if those people are family.”
“She said I used to tell her I loved her every night when I was little, but I hadn’t said it in years.” Janie rested her head against her chair and sighed. “I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d said it. Because I don’t think I do. Love her, I mean. I don’t think I have for a long time.”
“That’s okay. You’re allowed to not love someone who’s consistently hurt you. Blood relation doesn’t obligate you to maintain a relationship, especially one that’s toxic.”
“My grandmother gave me complete independence from my mother and allowed me to find my way out from under the darkness of her shadow.”
“And now you’re doing the same thing your grandmother did,” Rae said gently. “You’re protecting yourself and your children from someone who sees you as a means to an end rather than someone worthy of unconditional love.”
Something clicked into place in Janie’s mind, and the hollow ache under her ribs receded. “Yeah, I am.”
“How does that feel?”
The warmth in Rae’s voice seeped out of the phone and encased Janie in a blanket of comfort and acceptance. “Powerful. Scary. Right.”
“All of those are appropriate responses,” Rae said. “Listen, I know we’re not scheduled until Thursday, but if you need to come in earlier?—”
“No, I’m okay.” Janie smiled again, realizing she really meantthat too. “Hannah’s coming to pick me up. I just wanted to hear someone tell me I wasn’t crazy for slicing my mother from my life.”
“You’renotcrazy. You’re healthy. You’re setting boundaries. You’ve chosen yourself and your family over someone who’s consistently demonstrated that she doesn’t have your best interests at heart. You’ve done exactly what you should be doing.”
After they hung up, Janie sat in the quiet of her office and thought about the family she’d been fighting for. About what it meant, what it should mean, and what she wanted it to mean for her daughters. She thought about Hannah, who’d fought for their marriage even when Janie had given up on it. She’d been patient with Janie’s depression, her fears, and her inability to believe she deserved good things. Hannah saw Janie, reallysawher, and loved her anyway.
She thought about Tom, who’d never once made Janie feel like an intruder or a failure. He made her coffee exactly how she liked it and told her stories about Hannah’s childhood that made Hannah groan with embarrassment.
Her mind flitted to Hannah’s crew, who’d shown up to that courthouse like an army and testified on their behalf. They’d made it clear that Janie was part of their family too, not because she’d married into it but because she’d earned it by being real, by letting them see her struggles instead of pretending to be perfect.
Her bouncing brain settled on Maria, who’d given her a safe place to fall apart and put herself back together. Without her, Janie didn’t want to even contemplate where she might’ve ended up. The totally bizarre nature of their initial meeting, when Maria had tapped on Janie’s car window and then settled in the passenger seat without invitation, had been like a scene from the kind of weird movies that killed at the Sundance Film Festival.
