Somewhere during her long admission, Reese’s arm had snaked around her waist. It wasn’t sexual. It was purely care and comfort. “It’s not unusual for people who are unhappy with their own lives to drag down those around them when they start improving. They want you to stay at their level because they’re either scared or too lazy to improve themselves. If I keep you from climbing higher, then I’m not alone at the bottom.”
At some point, she had started crying. She wiped at her face. “But a grandmother? Clay, I get. I miss him. I’m sure he misses me. I still love him. I just can’t be around him. He doesn’t want to get better.”
“Sometimes the people we love are the people we need space from.” Reese reached up, wiping a tear from her cheek. “I should know. Going no contact with my mother was the hardest decision I’ve ever made.”
Matty grabbed her hand to press a kiss against it. When she pulled back, her eyes widened. “I’m sorry, I acted on instinct. I should have asked first.”
A soft smile tugged at Reese’s lips. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
She squeezed her hand in relief. “What pushed you to do it? Cut her off, I mean.”
She was surprised when Reese laughed in response.
“It was over a Facebook post.”
“A Facebook post?”
“Yep. It sounds flippant, but it was a culmination of decades of shit. The refusal to treat her mental illness. The narcissism. Things like making me buy a prom dress she liked, then making me take pictures of her in it because, and I quote, ‘it’s your fault I missed prom,’ as if I made her have sex and miss the last part of her senior year. Or the time she was manic, and while I was at school, she ripped all the carpet off the stairs to hand-paint ivy going up them. Only, she came off the mania before she could finish it. I ripped a chunk of skin off my heel because she didn’t remove the nails. I had to get three stitches, but that was after I had to ask the neighbor to take me to the hospital. I came home and had to remove all the nails myself. I was 14.”
“That’s awful. I can’t imagine how lonely that felt. I had wondered why the stairs were just bare wood.”
“That would be why. I never knew who I was coming home to. There would be brief times when she would take the meds, and those were good times. Well, mostly. She was still narcissistic, but it was less up and down. She was down more than up as the yearswent by. Between the bouts of depression and the vodka, it was to be expected, I guess. But back to the last straw.”
Reese leaned more heavily against Matty, prompting Matty to kick off her shoes and move them back against the pillows. It felt amazing to feel Reese’s head lie on her chest as their arms went around each other.
“It was Mother’s Day. I really didn’t use Facebook much. I called her to wish her a happy Mother’s Day. I bought us lunch, gave her flowers, but not a gift per her insistence, and stayed a few hours. During those hours, she made passive-aggressive comments about not getting a gift, how she wished she had grandchildren, and that even after blaming me for being a lesbian and I wasn’t seeing anyone at the time, she still thought it was time I gifted her her God-given right to be a grandma, and completely undermined anything else I said. After I left, I went home, and to decompress, I got on my phone and mindlessly scrolled. As I said, I didn’t post on social media. I still don’t, but that day I got on Facebook, and I liked my aunt’s post saying Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there.
“And that one little thing set off three days of abuse. Three days of text after text, paragraph after paragraph, over how horrible a daughter I was. How I hated her because I didn’t make a post professing how amazing she was. She dragged my aunt, who was my late father’s sister, even though she was the sweetest woman ever. She said I should be grateful I had what I had in life because I would be nothing without her. I’m not even joking when I say it went on for three days. I even blocked her, and she started sending me messages on Facebook. I finally said enough was enough.
“I decided I was done. Something had to give. For two months, I quietly looked for a new place to move. I found a job, packed up my things, sent Joyce a letter explaining I would no longer be contacting her, and disappeared. I didn’t tell anyone where I went except Haley.”
Matty’s mouth fell open as she squeezed Reese tight. “My God, baby, that’s awful. It must have been so hard. You literally left your whole life to get away from her.”
“It was, but also wasn’t. I felt so much lighter the closer it got to the time to leave, and then when I did, it was like I could finally breathe. I was so relieved. I would see her name on my phone and immediately feel dread. I didn’t have to feel that anymore.”
Matty’s lips turned down as she stared at the ceiling, dread filling her chest. “That’s how I feel when I see Grams is calling.”
They didn’t speak for a few minutes. The TV across from the bed was the only noise. It was some reality TV show that was turned down low.
Reese’s fingers played with the collar of Matty’s T-shirt. It felt so right to be close. “Matty, you know you need to do something about this Grammy and Clay thing, right?”
She was sure Reese could hear the hard swallow she made. The lump in her throat was huge. “Yeah, I do. I just, I can’t imagine cutting her off completely.”
Reese leaned up on one elbow to look down at her. Matty stared up at her. “Matty, you don’t have to cut her off completely, but you do need to set a firm boundary. You’ve worked too hard to get this far just to have her or your cousin drag you back there.”
“I know, and you’re right. I just, how do I do it without feeling like I’m abandoning her?”
“Being in the house is the biggest problem, right?”
She nodded.
“And she was able to get by while you were in rehab and the extended program you did, right?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a couple of uncles and some cousins that helped. I’m just the go-to because she raised me.”
“What if you told her you were not going back to the house? That she’ll have to call other people to help.”
“Then she’ll just call me, guilting me.”
