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My parents had certainly never seen a reason to come, not even back in high school, seeing me as the lesser child, at best thesparethat might need to exist but little past that.
No matter the pain that pushed through me, though, I refused to let my mother see it. I pushed it down and reminded myself that no matter how much that hurt, that was no longer my life.
My mother stopped just before me, her gaze lowering to my hand.
I let out a soft laugh as it became clear. “So that’s it, huh? You saw the interviews?”
She lifted her gaze, snapping it back up and managing to lookembarrassedby my words. That wasn’t a look I often saw on her face. “Everyone saw the interviews. You did a tour and were on every magazine cover and primetime show.”
“So you’re here to, what? To complain about bad press for you? Or did you just feel like you needed to put in facetime to look good?”
The rough edges of her expression softened, something unusual for her. She didn’t respond at first, either. After a long enough time that I started to fidget, she spoke, her voice barely over a whisper. “This isn’t about looks, Vance. I may not have always been a good mother, but I’m still your mother. I just wanted to see you, to see if it was true.”
Her words took me by surprise. When she’d spoken to me over the years, it had always felt as though she’d measured her words against some imaginary recording device, like she decided what to say based on how well it would play later. She’d often said the right thing for the moment, but not thetruething. So many times it hadn’t felt like I had a true mother, but rather a cardboard cutout who did the things required but never reallysawme.
That wasn’t the case now, though. Now, she spoke to me like a person, like a flawed woman hurting and regretting choices she’d made.
And years ago I would have flipped her off and walked out.
Now, though?
“It’s true,” I said and uncrossed my arms. I held out my right hand, the one without a glove, the one with a new prosthetic that actually had some use of the fingers. It couldn’t be hidden the way my old one could, but it was far more useful.I still couldn’t paint with any level of detail, but it let me teach.
My mother crossed the last few steps between us and reached out. She paused just before she made contact, however, as if unsure if she should touch me.
I held my hand out farther to give her permission.
Her touch was gentle, as though afraid to cause me pain. She took me by the wrist, turning my hand over, touching the line where it shifted between my body to the prosthetic. Her eyebrows pulled more toward one another, and it impressed me that she could even make an expression like that given how she paralyzed her facial muscles.
“It doesn’t hurt,” I told her when she seemed afraid to touch more than the lightest. “It did, when it happened, but it’s healed as much as it can.”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice came out so soft that I almost didn’t catch the words.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “I’ve got a lot I can blame you for, but this isn’t one of them.”
She shook her head, her gaze down, locked on my hand. “I’m not saying sorry about this happening. I’m sorry that I didn’t know, that you couldn’t tell me, that you had to deal with this alone. I’m your mother. You should have been able to come to me, to tell me about it, to let me help you. You didn’t because I never gave you the safe place I should have.”
I almost wanted to laugh at the apology I never thought I’d get, the one I didn’t even know I wanted. Even if someone said that such a thing was possible, I’d have laughed and said I didn’t want it.
Yet…that wasn’t how it felt.
Her words poured across the wounds I carried from a lifetime of feeling unwanted, unworthy, and soothed them. They didn’t heal them, didn’t make it as though the wounds didn’t exist, but they did take some of the sting from them.
“It’s okay,” I said, surprised that I actually believed that. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that no one’s perfect. We’re all just fucking things up in our own special way until we learn better. I’ve made a mess out of my life enough times, and I’ve been lucky enough to find people who accept me despite that, who forgive me for all my screw-ups. It’d be pretty terrible karma to not give the same to others.”
She squeezed slightly at my hand before releasing it and lifting her face toward mine. A smear of black makeup around her eyes startled me.Are those tears?
Had I ever seen my mother cry? In all my years, I didn’t think so. She was the type to follow the rule that a person never showed their emotions, that they hide them with everything they had. It meant she’d found this important enough, upsetting enough, that she couldn’t stop herself this time.
“Will you come to dinner soon?” she asked.
“Thanks, but I can’t stand seeing my father,” I answered. “But I’d be happy if you came to my place instead.”
“You don’t need to worry about that. Your father isn’t in the house.”
I tried to make sense of her meaning. “You mean he’s on a trip?”
“No, I mean I kicked him out. I should have done it a lot sooner, really, but sometimes it’s easier to stay in one place than move in the direction you should. The news of our divorce should hit the public in the next few weeks.”
