Mom: Left you another voicemail. Where are you?
Mom: Called Evan. He said you were there a little while ago. Where are you?
Mom: I’m calling the police.
Me: On my way home
Mom looks older than her usual old. She’s frail and weak, still in her work clothes even though she usually changes as soon as she gets home. I think she wants to be very, very angry, but relief is etched into every line of her face.
“Where have you been?” She comes down hard on been, biting into it, bruising the word, punishing it in a way she cannot punish me.
“I went to see Dad.”
It hangs in the air between us, hovering like a will-o’-the-wisp before settling.
“I see.”
She turns from me and heads into the living room. I follow.
“You can’t just disappear like that. Especially after what you pulled in school today. And you have to answer me when I—”
“Mom, I had to talk to him about Lola.”
For a moment, she’s frozen in the center of the room. Then the moment cracks like thin ice and she regains her poise; she sits on the sofa. “That’s still no excuse,” she says. I can tell she’s rattled, though, and a spring of pity for her bubbles up from deep inside me. This has been a day of too much for her—for me, too, but I can handle it—and she’s not ready for even more.
But Dad was right: I need to talk to her. I need her to understand.
“You need to let me know where you are,” she says, now wringing her hands and staring at the coffee table. “You can’t just run off.”
“Mom, I remember.”
Her hands pause for an instant, then resume. She does not look up at me. “Well, next time remember to text me back, or at least to—”
“That’s not what I mean, Mom. I mean, I remember that day.”
She nods. She nods. She nods again. And again. Her head bobs fiercely and still she does not look up. Her hands tighten on each other, squeezing each other dead white.
I don’t know how to do this. Mom and I don’t talk. Not really. She brings it up, I retreat. I bring it up, she retreats. We’re never in sync. We’re like a broken strobe light.
“How long?” she asks, a whisper I strain to hear. “When did you remember?”
Oh. Hands jammed in my pockets, I shrug. “Always. I’ve always remembered. I just never told anyone.”
Finally, she looks at me. Her chin trembles, jaw working in spastic tics. “Oh, Sebastian. God, Sebastian. Why?”
“I don’t know.” But I do know. Because I was four. Because I understood I’d done something very, very Bad. I knew it made people upset and angry. So it was easier to pretend I didn’t remember doing it. The kind of logic only a four-year-old can appreciate, the kind of logic I stumble to explain to her. “And then I was stuck with it. And every day, week, year, whatever, it just seemed easier and easier to pretend.”
She opens her mouth to speak, but can’t. Flaps her hands instead, gesturing me closer, and I sit next to her and she throws her arms around me and pulls me in close. There is still strength in her too-old limbs; she crushes me to her and whispers, “Oh, Sebastian,” over and over.
“I have to talk about it, Mom.”
She pulls back and shakes her head viciously. “You were a toddler, for God’s sake. It’s not your fault. You can’t blame yourself. Stop it.”
“I need to talk about it. I need to know what it was like. For you. Dad told me. I didn’t realize I needed it until he did, but I need to know. I barely knew her.”
“Stop it.” Shaking her head again. So violently.
“I just want to know, Mom. Please.”
“Sebastian, you’re my son and I love you and I would do anything for you, but I can’t do this. I’m sorry,” she says with finality, withdrawing to the other end of the sofa. “I can’t talk about this. I can’t relive this. I’m not strong enough.”
“You think forgetting her makes it better? Pretending? Look at you! You’re a hermit, Mom! You never leave the house, except for work and your therapist. You got rid of the pictures and all the mementos, but you can’t get rid of her, no matter how much you try.”
She stiffens. “Good night.” She heads to the hallway.
“Mom!” I’m up off the sofa. “Stop doing this to yourself! To us!” I use my last weapon. “Dad can do it. Dad told me what I wanted to know. I just need—”
She spins to me so suddenly that I take a step back, connect with the coffee table, nearly spill backward onto it. Her eyes, red-rimmed, pin me in the air, and her face twists into an ugly, contorted mask.
“You need? You need? What about what I need? All I’ve done is think about what you need for ten years. Your father couldn’t handle it; he left. He got to go. I had to stay. Stay here, in this house, walking past that door every day and every night, remembering. I didn’t get to escape, Sebastian.”
“Mom…” I hold up my hands, palms out. “Calm down.…”
“Calm down? Calm down? No, Sebastian.” She steps closer to me. “This is what you want. You want to talk. You want to know how I feel.”
Mom’s throat works; I’m close enough to see the tendons clutch and spasm.
“Dad said you used to bring her into the bedroom every morning to—”
“Stop it!” she screams, hands to her temples, as though her head has split open and she has to hold it closed. “Just stop it!”
It’s such a sudden change that I should be shocked, but I’m not. I realize what I’ve done—I’ve injected a memory too strong for her to ignore, too powerful, too primal. And I should stop here, but I can’t.
“I can’t! I’ve spent my whole life not talking about it, and where has that gotten me?”
“It got you this far! You have friends and school and—”
“Friends? Are you crazy? I have one friend, Mom: Evan. Aneesa isn’t talking to me because I ruined that, and you know why? Do you know why? Because I’m so messed up that I can’t deal with other people like a normal human being!”
“You’ve had therapy,” Mom snaps. “You can have more. You’re the one who refused to see someone else after Kennedy retired. I can’t wipe your nose for you anymore, Sebastian. You’re not a—a child.”
Baby.
“Jesus Christ, Mom, look at you! You can’t even say the word baby. This is healthy to you? This is normal? This is okay?”
She snorts and spits out her words, staccato: “No, it’s not, but I’m doing the best I can.”
“Well, you’re doing a shit job of it.”
Eyes wide and flashing, she purses her lips into a tight ring of anger. “You don’t get to tell me how to be a parent.”
I’ve pushed her too far. I’ve backed her into a corner from which there’s no escape and no respite. And I recognize this. Some part of me that still thinks recognizes this, but I keep battering at her anyway.
“Your way isn’t working. We can’t keep pretending—”
She throws her hands up in the air. “Jesus, Sebastian. I’m doing the best that I can. What do you want from me?”