Parker hung up.
Which was fine! It was a good conversation. It didn’t matter that she hung up without saying love you. Erin didn’t need to let that undo how the rest of the call eased her anxiety.
She was grateful to have to get back to work instead of allowing herself to spiral.
After work, though, she went straight to spiraling.
What if Parker knew? What if that was why she hadn’t called for so long? What if that was why she didn’t say she loved Erin on the phone?
Carolyn would lecture Erin for ascribing judgment where there was no proof of it. Last week, she’d told Erin to just ask Parker what was going on. The thought was still petrifying.
Erin shouldn’t be doing what she was doing with Cassie for a lot of reasons, but if she was going to be this neurotic after every phone call with her daughter, she really shouldn’t be doing it. Surely this anxiety canceled out some of the happiness that seemed to crop up every time she got a text from Cassie.
Removing Cassie from the situation altogether—what would Erin do if Parker hadn’t called her in a week and a half if Erin had never done anything with Cassie? She’d ask probably. She would press. If she thought something was wrong with Parker, she’d want to know. She’d want Parker to know she could talk to her about it. They could talk about things that mattered.
They hadn’t lately, though, had they?
Parker hadn’t even told Erin what she wanted to study. She loved art, obviously, but whenever Erin brought up a future in it, Parker shut her down. And while Parker knew how Erin’s life had changed with the divorce from the outside—Adam had moved out and Erin worked more—they’d never talked about how she had changed.
Pushing wasn’t going to make Parker open up.
Erin had to open up herself. Carolyn had said maybe it was time to have the conversation with Parker about the divorce more than a month ago. Erin couldn’t do it then. Maybe she could now.
She wanted to talk to Cassie about it. She’d told Cassie things Parker didn’t know: how important the clinic was to her, how she felt like herself for the first time in more than a decade.
But they didn’t talk about Parker. They’d never explicitly agreed not to; they just never had. Like if they didn’t mention her, they could pretend they weren’t doing anything wrong. So Erin didn’t say anything about her decision to talk to Parker. She didn’t admit to chickening out the next time Parker called, finally on a Sunday.
But by the Sunday after that, when Parker called, Erin had built up her nerve. They did the usual weekly catch up, and Parker was more loquacious than she’d been their last two phone calls. She talked about Sam, a quiet smile in her voice.
“Does she know that if she hurts you, your mom is gonna fly down there and hurt her right back?”
Parker laughed. “I think Acacia would get to her first.”
“That won’t stop me,” Erin said. “Seriously, though, sweetheart, she sounds great. I’m glad you found someone who treats you right.”
“What about you?” Parker said. “Anyone treating you right nowadays?”
They’d never talked about Erin’s dating life after the divorce. It’d taken Erin more than a year to give in to Rachel’s desire to set her up, and she always did it when Parker was with her father.
“Actually,” Erin said. She swallowed. She could do this. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”
The line was silent.
Erin swallowed. “It’s not bad. But it’s important.”
Still no response from Parker.
“Are you there?”
“Yeah.”
Erin had thought parenting was hard when Parker was little. Raising a baby into toddlerhood while in med school took everything Erin had, and she’d still messed up, pretty much all the time. Parker had survived, but it felt like barely. To this day, Erin’s guilt flared when she caught sight of the scar behind Parker’s ear from when she’d managed to launch herself out of a swing at three and a half.
Parenting an almost adult was harder.
Erin was somehow supposed to balance being the grown-up while also recognizing Parker as something of an equal. It’d been a long time since Parker believed her mother to be all-knowing, but Erin was still supposed to have some wisdom. She was supposed to teach Parker things she was still learning herself. How to live in this world. How to be a good person. How to take care of yourself.
“I want to explain my decision to get the divorce,” Erin said, as plainly as she could.
A beat. “What?”
“It wasn’t something I took lightly. It wasn’t something I did to hurt you or your father. It wasn’t me choosing anything over either of you.”
“We’re talking about the divorce?” Parker said. “Really? Now?”
“Yes, I—” Erin considered. Barely into the conversation and already a parenting fail. “Actually, you’re right. I shouldn’t have sprung this on you with no warning. This is a conversation it’s important for us to have, but it doesn’t have to be right now. Is there another time this week that would work better for you?”
Parker scoffed.
Erin chewed at her bottom lip and waited.
“Whatever. Fine. Let’s have the conversation. Go right ahead. Tell me all your great reasons.”
“You’re my reason,” Erin said.
More silence.
Erin couldn’t stay still for this. She got up off the couch to pace instead, running a hand through her hair.
“I want you to be happy. More than anything, that’s what I want. And I mean really happy, long-term happy. It wasn’t what your grandma wanted for me, not really, or if it was, our ideas of happiness were nowhere close to each other’s. It never seemed like it was about wanting me to be happy as it was about having a path for me, all planned out. Your dad wasn’t a part of that path. You weren’t a part of that path. Med school wasn’t a part of that path. And so, I spent a lot of time trying to do what she wanted, to make up for how I thought I’d let her down. I don’t want our relationship to be like that. Nothing you could do will ever let me down. And I want you to be happy, whatever path you take to get there.”
Erin took a breath. She was babbling, obviously, but she needed to get it all out. Now that she’d opened the door, it felt more like floodgates, everything rushing out at once.
Parker broke in now that she finally had the chance. “You want me to be happy, so you got a divorce? That’s really what you’re trying to say here?”
“Yes.” She took another breath. It was simple, really. “How could I teach you to be happy when I wasn’t?”