Tonight, I just hold her hand and walk her home.
15
IRIS
I've been awake for hours, rehearsing, watching the clock crawl toward a decent hour in Chicago. The moment it ticks over to seven—the earliest my mother would ever forgive a phone call—I dial, before I can lose my nerve.
She answers on the third ring, her voice crisp and put-together even at this hour. "Iris. It’s not Sunday. What’s wrong."
"We need to talk."
A pause. I can picture her sitting up in bed, reaching for her reading glasses, already armoring herself. "Is something wrong with the property? Has something happened with the lawyer?"
"Something happened, yes. But not with the lawyer." I grip the phone tighter, willing my voice to stay steady. "I know about Hélène."
The silence that follows is absolute. Not surprised silence—I've learned to recognize my mother's silences, and this one is the particular quality of someone who's been waiting for a blow to land.
"I see," she says finally.
"That's it? That's all you have to say?" The anger I've been holding back since last night surges up my throat. "You cut off your own mother because she loved a woman. You took me away from her, lied to me about her, let me grow up thinking she didn't want me—"
"I never said she didn't want you."
"You never said anything! That was the point!" I'm pacing now, unable to stand still. The terrace stones are warm under my bare feet, and the lavender is swaying in the breeze, and everything about this place is beautiful except for the ugliness of this conversation. "You just... erased her. Made her into a forbidden topic. And the whole time, the whole time, it was because you couldn't accept—"
"You don't understand." My mother's voice has gone cold, the way it always does when she feels attacked. "You weren't there. You don't know what it was like to discover that your mother had been lying to you for decades—"
"She wasn't lying. She was living. She was in love, and she was happy, and you couldn't stand it."
"She was living in sin." The words are sharp, vicious. "She was flaunting her—her lifestyle, right there in the family home, in front of my child—"
"I was five! I didn't know what I was seeing! I just knew my grandmother loved me, and then suddenly I never saw her again!" My voice cracks. I hate that it cracks. "Do you have any idea what that did to me? Growing up without grandparents, without any connection to half my heritage, all because you couldn't accept that your mother was gay?"
"She wasn't gay. She was confused. That woman—Hélène—she manipulated her, took advantage—"
"They were together for thirty-five years!" I'm shouting now, and I don't care. "Thirty-five years, Mother. That's not confusion. That's not manipulation. That's love. And you destroyed my chance to know it."
"I was protecting you."
"From what? From knowing that women can love each other? From understanding that family isn't about who you're supposed to be, but who you are?" I laugh, and it sounds bitter even to my own ears. "You didn't protect me. You just made me like you—closed off, terrified of anything that doesn't fit the plan."
"I don't have to listen to this."
"No, you don't. You never have to listen to anything you don't want to hear. That's your specialty." I take a breath, trying to steady myself. "I'm not coming back to Chicago."
Another silence, this one sharper.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I'm staying here. In Provence. In Grand-mère's house." Saying it out loud makes it real, makes it true. "This is my home now. My inheritance. And you don't get to take it away from me again."
"Iris, be reasonable—"
"I'm done being reasonable. I've spent my whole life being reasonable, and all it got me was a mother who lies and agrandmother I never knew." I close my eyes against the tears threatening to fall. "Goodbye, Mother."
I hang up before she can respond.
For a long moment, I just stand there, phone clutched in my hand, staring out at the lavender fields. My heart is pounding. My hands are shaking. I feel like I've just stepped off a cliff and I'm waiting to see if I'll fly or fall.
