Chapter 14 - THE LAST TIME SHE ORDERED ME HOME
Mom moved out of the old family house nine months after the barbecue.
Dad and she sold it as part of their legal separation.
She rented a condominium near New Albany.
The South Carolina retirement plan disappeared with most of the money she had to repay.
One evening, she called me.
I almost let it go to voicemail.
Then I answered.
“The movers damaged the dining cabinet,” she said.
I waited.
“I need you to come over.”
The request was so familiar that for a second my body prepared to obey before my mind caught up.
“No.”
“It will take twenty minutes.”
I almost laughed.
She heard it.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Lucy, I don’t have anyone.”
There was the sentence beneath all the others.
Not your father needs you.
Not Chelsea needs you.
I don’t have anyone.
I sat on my couch while Dany colored at the coffee table.
“You could ask the moving company.”
“They won’t come until Monday.”
“Then Monday.”
“You’re really going to leave me alone over a cabinet?”
“I’m going to let you solve a problem that belongs to you.”
Her breathing changed.
“You’ve become cold.”
“No. I finally stopped confusing immediate availability with love.”
She did not speak for several seconds.
Then she asked something I did not expect.
“Does Dany still like fries?”
I looked at him.
“Yes.”
Mom swallowed audibly.
“I think about that day.”
“So do I.”
“I shouldn’t have said it.”
“No.”
“I was angry.”
“At a four-year-old?”
“At you.”
“That makes it worse.”
She did not defend herself.
For once, she let the sentence remain where it landed.
Before hanging up, she said, “Tell him I’m sorry.”
“I won’t.”
She sounded wounded.
“If you ever apologize to him, you do it yourself.”
The silence lasted almost a minute.
May you like
Then she said, “All right.”
It was the first request for accountability she had not immediately turned into another assignment for me.
