“Is that the magic number before I get a response?”
“It’s not even noon yet.”
I just don’t believe anyone is so busy that they can’t take twominutes to return a call from their mother. We had this same conversation when she went to college. When she got her first job. When she got married. It’s ridiculous.
But I didn’t say any of those things, because honestly I was too grateful to hear from her. “How’s my grandson?” I started on neutral ground.
“He’s fine.”
Silence.
“Well, I just finished moving all my stuff into Grandma Jewel’s house.”
Silence.
“And?”
“And I wanted you to know. I’m settled now. I’m okay. This is going to work out for me, I think.”
She huffed. “Sounds like I’m not the one who needs convincing.”
“Listen, I know you don’t understand why I left your father. It was a hard decision. But I’m asking you, my only daughter, for a little support.”
“I can’t support what I oppose.”
“You oppose me?”
“I oppose what you did. You broke up our family, Mom. Now Dad calls me, like, every single day to do something for him. Order food, send thank-you notes. Like I’m his secretary.”
“So youdounderstand a part of my problem, then,” I twirled her words around.
“No. I’m saying that I did not sign up to be his life partner. You did. And now you’ve reneged, and now I have to step in where you left off. It’s not fair to me or my husband or Elijah. I can’t run two households.”
“Let your father run his own life,” I blurted out. “Tell himto stand out here on his own two feet like you’re telling me, right?”
Terri barked, “He didn’t ask for this. He’s not the one who left.”
My whole body thrummed with anger, blood rushing through my system to prepare me for danger. So I took a breath. Tried not to let myself get entangled in this argument with Terri again. She was—and had always been—a daddy’s girl. Everyone’s entitled to a favorite person. Maybe I’d have to accept this the same way I’d accepted that my marriage was over long before the Big D.
“I just wanted you to know I’m settled in now,” I said with new calm. “And don’t take on your daddy’s life. You’ve got enough on your hands already.” I stopped shy of mentioning her most vulnerable moment, the one that always reminded me that Terri might have her father’s bravado, but she’d inherited my tendency to worry.
It happened late one Thursday night, her freshman year in college. She’d called me huffing and puffing, frantic. “Momma, I can’t breathe!”
Those three words nearly took me out, too. I told her to hang up and call 9-1-1 while I raced to the campus. Eric was out of town on business, and Eric Jr. was at basketball practice, if I remember correctly.
By the time I arrived, paramedics had correctly assessed her situation as a panic attack.
Terri was holding an oxygen mask to her face, looking into the eyes of the emergency technician who was coaching her back to a normal state while keeping an eye on her blood pressure.
“You’ve suffered a panic attack. You’re coming out of it now.”
Later, once the EMTs had left and Terri’s freaked-outroommate excused herself, I sat holding my daughter on the couch, her head resting on my shoulder in a way it hadn’t since she was a little girl.
“Mom. My heart felt like it was about to explode. I thought I was dying.”
“I’m so sorry that happened to you, Terri. It must have been terrifying.”
She wiped a tear away. “I don’t understand. Nothing happened. Like, no trigger. It just came out of nowhere.”
