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“Hello?” I say tentatively.
“Hello Sunny,” my mother snaps.
The grip on my phone tightens, my eyes falling shut as I try to keep my breath even.
“Oh hey mom—”
“Don’they momme,” she sneers, interrupting me as always, her voice icy against my ear. “Do you really think you could ignore me like this and I would just…just let it go? How could you!?” she shrieks.
Her shrill voice makes my skin crawl and I curse my impulsive decision to even answer this call.
I try to keep my voice leveled but the snark in my tone is sharp like a blade, “How could I what,mother?” I put emphasis on the word knowing she hates it when I call her mother and not mom.
“Don’t you play your silly games with me missy. You are still my child and youwillrespect me,” she seethes, making me clutch the phone even harder. “You left without even telling me or your dad you were leaving. How could you? Andthen…then you ignore us like we’re complete strangers to you?” she says with indignation, her voice rising higher with every word.
I can picture her now, in my childhood house, her fingers tangled in the telephone cord of the old landline they still have attached to the wall in the kitchen. A full face of makeup even in the house, her eyelashes heavy with the blackest mascara she can find, the blush on her cheeks a shade of pink that has always clashed with her skin tone. Stuck in a decade long passed. A decade when she still felt beautiful. An era when men still gave her the attention she so desperately craves from her husband—my father.
I hit the speaker button and place it on the dresser, the towel puddling to my feet while I riffle through the heap of clothes on the chair—washed but never folded. It takes every single ounce of strength I have not to take the bait she’s carefully laid out in front of me.
Before I left for Noxport, we hadn’t spoken in months. I know, although she’ll never admit it, that the actual reason she’s upset is because she can’t uphold the picture perfect illusion of our tight-knit family if I’m gone. Especially after River. My absence is creating a tear in her carefully constructed mirage. Her worries are self-serving, they have nothing to do with me.
“How did you get this number anyway?” I quip. This woman doesn’t believe in boundaries. Whatever excuse she’ll give me probably won’t be the truth so I’m not surprised when she skirts the question and skips right over it as if that detail is insignificant.
“I have the right to speak to my own daughter. Is it such a chore to speak to me that you had to leave like a crook in the night? I had to learn about it from Catherine since you blocked me from seeing your life online. Do you know how embarrassing that was?” she sniffs.
Catherine is my cousin. We’re not close.
“Is there a reason for your call or did you just simply need to act the victim?” I bite back.
I hear the sharp intake of breath through the speaker before her piercing voice fills the room.
“Sunny Constance Delarue, I did not raise you to speak to me with such insolence!” she screams.
You didn’t raise me at all.
I shimmy into a pair of leggings as she continues to chastise me and I let her run out of steam, pulling a dark green crew neck over my head and falling into bed, my phone on my chest. Finally, she falls silent.
“Are you coming back for the memorial?” she asks.
I put an arm over my eyes, my anxiety rising like a quick tide.
“What memorial?”
“It’s been five years since—”
“And?” I groan through clenched teeth. “No one does a memorial after five years. What’s the fucking point? Who’s this even for?”
It’s for her. It’s always for her.
“Language, Sunny,” she tuts. “Well, you might not see the point but I thought a small memorial would be a nice way to mark the event.”
The event.
I can barely breathe, listening to her prattle on about the guest list while fury slices through me like a hot knife. Eventually I regain my voice and cut her off.
“I’m not coming back for the memorial. Or at all for that matter, so you can make up whatever excuse you want for my absence, I really don’t give a fuck. We’re done here,” I snap. I don’t wait for her rebuttal before hanging up, blocking her number out of spite. I fight the urge to throw my phone across the room and instead scream into my pillow, my hands in tight fists.
Why did I even pick up? I knew exactly how this was going to play out. And in one simple phone call she managed to stuff me so full of anxiety and guilt that I can barely swallow, her influence still so suffocating even this far away.
