Dorm. It’s too cold to go to class.
River
I’ll be there in 5
Except I don’t go to her immediately. I stand there in the freezing cold, then I open up the paper. It’s blank except for those ten numbers in a row.
I don’t recognize the area code, but that isn’t a surprise. If I’d bailed like she had, I’d want to be as far away as humanly possible.
I type in the numbers, staring down at my phone as I contemplate whether I really want to tap the call button.
I do.
I don’t.
I don’t know.
I’d wanted this, so I do it anyway.
It rings three times, and I hold my breath as I wait to see if she’s going to answer.
“Rafael?”
The sound of my name knocks the breath out of my lungs, and I exhale slowly. “Yeah,” I say, my voice hoarse and unsteady. “Hi, Mom.”
“How did you get this number?” she demands.
The fear in her tone is palpable even through the phone, and I grit my teeth. What reason does she have to be afraid of me? What have I ever done to her?
“I was worried about you,” I say, sidestepping the question entirely.
“Is your father there?” She sounds stronger somehow, which should be a relief but only makes me defensive.
“What? Of course not,” I say. “I’m not calling for him. I’m calling forme. You bailed on me!”
“Don’t give him this number. Don’t—” Mom bites off her words. “I didn’t bail onyou. But you’re putting me in danger by calling.”
Her words hurt.
I try to put myself in her shoes. I understand why she’s so afraid. I can’t stop her words from devastating me all the same.
“You could’ve told me something, anything,” I snap at her. “I thought you were dead. I thought he’d killed you.”
“He would have known.” Mom pauses, that silence so similar to all the words we never spoke in our house. “You’re grown now. You can take care of yourself. You don’t need me.”
“You’re mymother,” I say. “I’ve always needed you.”
But that hadn’t mattered. She’d stepped away, closed her eyes, and pretended everything was fine when it had been anything but.
I understand it on some level. She hadn’t wanted to turn his ire on her. She probably hadn’t known what to do.
Except leave, and she’d waited until I was gone to do that.
She’d protected herself in a way she’d never protected me.
“Now you know I’m alive,” she says. “There’s nothing else. Don’t contact me again.”
She hangs up on me.
