Idon’t know how I survive until Saturday. I work. I skate. I miss Maggie. I can’t think about my brother, so I think about Heath until ice fills my veins. And then I do it all over again.
Mom’s sitting on my bed when I get home from work Friday night. I know she’s been crying. Her eyes are red, but her cheeks are dry and her makeup has been touched up. I don’t like that I hesitate in my doorway. I knew we’d have to talk—it’s been nearly a week since we’ve said anything meaningful to each other, and I’m not afraid of her, but still, I hesitate. She sees it and awkwardly stands. She takes a step toward me, pauses, then takes another, and then quicker ones until she’s close enough to wrap her arms around me.
For the first time in my life, my arms don’t automatically encircle her back. They stay limp at my sides while my eyes prick. I know she can feel how stiffly I’m standing but she doesn’t pull away; she strokes the back of my hair.
“Sweetie, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
And the thing is I know she’s sorry. I knew it the second she slapped me, even before her eyes went wide in horror. All week I’ve known she was sorry and ashamed. All week I’ve known I should go to her and tell her it’s okay, that I love and forgive her, because I do. I did lie to her. I knew my actions would send her into a panic and that she’d be terrified and angry when I didn’t come straight home after seeing Jason. I knew all that, and I didn’t even call. I shattered my own phone so I wouldn’t have to.
And my arms remain at my sides while she hugs me just feet from where I’ve hidden her mother’s quilt.
For how long, I don’t know, but it becomes clear that she’s not letting go until I respond. I hug my mother like a stranger and it splinters my heart when I do. “It’s okay, Mom.”
At last she lets me go. Her eye makeup has started to run, but I’ve kept my eyes dry by sheer will. She strokes my cheek, my arms, my hands, seemingly unwilling to let go of me entirely after so many days of complete emotional and, in large part, physical separation as well. She sits us both down on my bed and tells me things I already know, things her own mother never said to her.
She’ll never raise a hand to me in anger again.
She’ll never react without giving me a chance to explain again.
She loves me.
She’s so sorry.
So, so sorry.
She can’t bear feeling so much distance between us.
Will I forgive her?
I answer truthfully. I believe her and I forgive her, but she’s the one who hugs me again and I have to force myself to respond in kind.
It feels like a lie, but I don’t understand why.
“Mom,” I say, pulling away. “I need to ask you for something tomorrow.”
Her hand is immediately cupping my cheek. “Anything.”
I take a deep breath. “I want to visit Jason again by myself.”
Her hand on my cheek stills then lowers in jerky motions to her lap.
I know what I’m asking, the impossibility of it in her eyes. She’d sooner cut off her own arm than miss seeing her son another week. The fact that I’m asking such a thing, fresh off the heels of her desperate attempted reconciliation no less, it feels cruel. We both know it.
I still ask though.
I have to see Jason alone, and she can’t be sitting quietly at another table or even waiting for her turn in the parking lot. It has to be my brother and me, just us.
Mom’s eyes are swimming as she looks at me. I’m making her choose, and I’ve never felt more disgust for myself.
She doesn’t say anything.
“We had a fight last time,” I tell her, thinking that if I give her a reason, something good and sibling-unifying to think her absence will help bring about, it might devastate her less. “It was stupid, but I need to see him, alone, and make it right.”
I can see how tortured she is thinking about my request. Inwardly she must be writhing. I don’t think she’s going to be able to bring herself to agree, so I do something awful.
“I promise to call this time. Dad fixed my phone so I can call the whole drive back. You won’t have to...be upset when I get home.”
She makes a sound like her heart has torn in two, a soft whimpering gasp. I blink back tears waiting for her to say the only thing I’ve left her with.
