Chapter 14 - The Last Thing Maren Would Let Her Mother Take
The repayment agreement was simple.
Three hundred dollars a month once Darlene found steady work.
Higher payments if she sold the house or refinanced.
No interest.
No public humiliation.
No threats.
No using extended relatives as messengers.
Clara signed first.
Maren signed second.
Darlene did not.
She stared at the signature line.
“You’re making me sign a contract to repay my own daughters.”
Clara said, “Yes.”
“I’m your mother.”
“Yes.”
Darlene looked at Maren.
“And if I don’t sign?”
Maren hated the next sentence before she said it.
“Then I’m done discussing money with you, and I’m not comfortable rebuilding anything else yet.”
Darlene’s eyes moved to the stroller parked beside the counseling-office door.
Maren had brought June because Owen’s childcare plans fell through.
June slept inside it, tiny beneath the pale lavender blanket.
The same stroller Darlene had tried to drag out of Maren’s house.
Darlene looked at her granddaughter for a long time.
“You’re keeping her from me.”
Maren shook her head.
“No.”
“That’s exactly what you’re doing.”
“I’m protecting the conditions around her.”
“From me?”
“From what happens when you think being family gives you the right to ignore boundaries.”
Darlene flinched.
Maren continued.
“And from me becoming the kind of mother who solves conflict by hitting somebody because I’m too angry to leave.”
That shut down the argument.
Because Maren was not pretending she had behaved perfectly either.
She had crossed a line during the stroller fight.
She would have to own that separately from everything Darlene had done.
Darlene picked up the pen.
She still didn’t sign.
Instead she asked, “If I do this, do I get my daughters back?”
Clara looked at Maren.
Maren answered.
“No one can promise you that.”
Darlene’s eyes filled.
Not theatrically.
May you like
Just enough that she had to blink before looking down again.
Then she signed.
