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“Kat, you know how I’ve always liked to travel. You’re asking me to stay in one place, forever! And not have any friends there with me,” she pointed out.
“You don’t need to have anyone living off you anymore. You can meet them at bars and go to movies together, like normal people.”
“I probably won’t have enough money to go to a movie! How much does a ticket cost?” she wondered.
“Mom, that doesn’t matter. This is a very generous offer.”
“They never apologized,” she pointed out. “They never said sorry for how they raised me, which was so wrong.”
“Do you think that you—” I stopped myself, because bringing up her own parenting failures wouldn’t help us at this point. “No, they didn’t. Maybe if you live in their house, you’ll see them more and you can help them to see their mistakes. You can enlighten them.”
“Hekate, enlightenment comes from within,” she chided, but I could tell that she was interested in the idea.
I pushed harder. “You can’t stay with me. You can’t,” I repeated. “I’m not going to give you money to go anywhere on your own, either.”
She looked at me and I wondered what she was thinking, but she didn’t say. She only nodded and we walked back to the table.
“Was the trip successful?” my grandmother asked snidely. She wasn’t a nice woman.
But it turned out that the answer to her question was “yes.” My mother spoke up and said that she would sign their contract. No, she didn’t want to wait for her lawyer to read it, she would sign right now. She would leave with them on their plane when they flew back to New York this afternoon, after they stopped by the Detroit Institute of Arts to see the Rivera murals and some Rembrandts.
“I’m glad that we can settle this,” my grandfather said and I nodded at him. “It’s so interesting how life turns out. I wouldn’t have thought that the two of you would still be friendly, doing things like going to the bathroom together.”
“I didn’t really need her help,” I explained, “and I know that she was an unconventional mother but I also know that she loved me.”
“Did you?” my grandmother asked my mom. “What about La Grieta?”
“The earthquake? What does that have to do with anything?” I wondered.
My grandmother stared at me, her eyebrow raised. “Aren’t you aware of what happened?”
“Yes, practically the entire town fell down,” I said. “I was in the middle of it, so I’m aware.”
“Let’s not talk about this,” my mom said. Her voice, usually breathy and fluttering, was now strident. “I don’t want to talk about this. The past is a vast ocean and we—”
“What happened?” I asked. “What is it that you don’t want to talk about?”
My grandmother glanced at my mom. “You criticize my parenting, Journey, but you were willing to let your daughter go.”
“Let me go? What does that mean?” I demanded. “Mom! What is she talking about?”
“I was having issues at that point with Daisuke,” she answered. “Our energies—”
“Mom! What happened in La Grieta?”
She hesitated and I watched her swallow. “I didn’t feel as if my lifestyle was compatible with yours, Hekate.”
“My ‘lifestyle?’ I was five,” I said. “I didn’t have one yet. Do you mean that you didn’t want to take care of me?”
The answer was yes. The other three people at the table, my grandmother, grandfather, and their lawyer, were all nodding in unison.
“Is that why you let me go to the library that day? To get away from me?” I asked.
“I was depleted,” Mom explained. “Spiritually, I was an empty bucket that needed to be refilled so I was on my way to be with Daisuke. But then the earthquake hit. The roads buckled and I thought about you there in the town, so I went back to find you and it all worked out!”
It took me a moment to digest what she actually meant. “You were leaving me permanently?” I asked, the words coming slowly. “You were going to drive away and try to shack up with Daisuke and leave me alone in a library?”
The three other people nodded again. My mom just looked guilty, although guilt was something that she didn’t ascribe to. She had said that a lot and she had also told me that she loved me. Obviously, those things weren’t true.
