She contacted people, you know? I didn’t know. I had no idea, and the thought that any of my success belongs to Mom kills me. A literal stabbing of my heart, shredding it to pieces.
Resting the champagne glass I’ve now stolen onto the hood of the car, I tear into the small purse dangling from my wrist and power on my phone. The same words greet me: one new message.
Not listening to my father or Noah or anyone, I kept it. Last April, I thought I could sever my mother from my life—that after one meeting with her, I could move on, but she’s still here, surrounding me, haunting me, like shrapnel embedded too deep to retrieve.
Noah slowly rounds on me as if I’m teetering on the edge of a bridge, ready to jump. As I meet his eyes, I realize he’s not far off. “She called people. She told them to buy my stuff.”
He assesses the phone then refocuses on me. “Your mom?”
I nod.
“Who’d she call?”
“The galleries...” I trail off when the door to the gallery opens and laughter drifts into the night. My mind jumps around, searching for another answer, hoping for a plausible solution other than that I’ve been handed the truth.
But maybe Mom didn’t call. Maybe this woman is wrong. Maybe the curator is mean and she’s evil and before I can think it through, my thumb is over the button. The phone springs to life. Numbers dial. Little lines grow with the cell phone reception. The phone rings loudly once.
Noah bolts forward. “What the fuck do you—”
“Echo?” The desperate sound of my mother’s voice shatters past the confusion and slams the fear of God into my veins. The phone tumbles from my hands and crashes to the ground.
The phone beeps—the call lost—and Noah stands openmouthed over the cell as if I murdered someone. “What the hell, Echo?”
“I...” The rest of my statement, my train of thought, catches in my throat. I called her. I knot my fingers into my hair and pull, creating pain. Oh, my God, I called her. I initiated contact, and now the door is open...
Cotton-mouthed, I whisper, “What have I done?”
Noah scrubs both of his hands over his face. “I don’t know.”
“This is bad.”
He steps forward. “It’s not. You hung up. She’ll assume it was a mistake.”
The phone rings. Each shrill into the night is like a knife slicing through me, and the panic building in my chest becomes this pressure that’s difficult to contain—a pulse that’s hard to resist. Answer, answer, answer!
“Think about this, Echo.”
My eyes snap to Noah’s. “I need to know.”
“She’s not going to give you the answers you want.”
“What if she did call the galleries? What if my success was a pity offering from her?”
“Echo—”
Closer than him, more desperate than him, I swipe the phone off the ground before he can move, but the phone stops ringing. My hands shake, and this desperation claws at me as I run a hand over my neck, searching for whatever is constricting my ability to breathe. “I could call her back.”
With both hands in the air like he’s handling a kidnapping negotiation, Noah edges in my direction. “You could, but let’s discuss it first.”
My fingers clutch the phone. “If she did this I need to know. I need to know if she asked people to buy those paintings from me.”
“What if she did? Why does it matter?”
“Because if she did, I’m a failure!”
He halts, and his eyebrows furrow together. “That’s bullshit.”
“But it’s true.”
“It’s not. Nothing good happens when you talk to your mom. What makes this different? What she says to you, what she’s done—it fucks with you!”
“She’s my mom!”
“And I’m the one holding you in the middle of the night when you can’t decipher what’s real and what’s a dream. She’s not here. I am. Not her!”
Anger explodes up from my toes and spirals out of my body. “You don’t understand! It’s more than the paintings. It’s more! She’s my mom. You don’t understand what it’s like to be torn between wanting to hate someone and wanting them in your life, then hating them all over again!”
“Fuck that, because I do. My mom’s family contacted me. They want to meet me. The goddamned people she ran from want me in their fucked-up lives.”
Noah
Echo and I stare at each other, and I suck in air to get my breathing under control. Her eyes are too wide, and my heart’s pounding too fast. It’s not how I meant to tell her, but it’s out, and I can’t take it back. The edges of my sight are blurry. I’ve drunk too much, but I’m glad the truth is out.
“What did you say?” she asks.
I yank the folded email out of my back pocket and offer it to her. Echo reaches for the paper like she’s seconds from handling a ticking time bomb. She unfolds it, and I slump against her car. Rainwater pooled on the hood, and it soaks through the bottom of my jeans. Damn this entire week to hell.