Part 2
Valerie looked at the message for a long moment, then at Megan. The young woman was sitting perfectly still, but her whole body seemed to be bracing for impact, as if the phone might rise from the desk and strike her.
“What do you usually say?” Valerie asked.
Megan laughed without humor. “Depends. Sometimes I apologize. Sometimes I lie. Sometimes I send a picture of my salad like I’m reporting to a parole officer.”
“And sometimes?”
“Sometimes I don’t answer, and then she calls until I do.”
Valerie read the message again. Did you weigh yourself this morning, or are we pretending again? There was something intimate about its cruelty. Not loud enough for strangers to object to, not obscene enough to be dismissed as abuse, just a thin needle pushed under the skin by someone who knew exactly where to press.
Her first instinct was to say, Tell her it’s none of her business. Her second was to add, and stop being so dramatic. That second instinct made her uncomfortable.
“Write this,” Valerie said. “Mom, I’m not discussing my weight today.”
Megan blinked. “That’s it?”
“That is a complete sentence.”
“She’ll hate it.”
“Probably.”
“She’ll say I’m being disrespectful.”
“You are being direct. Those are different things, though mothers often confuse them.”
Megan looked at the legal pad as if Valerie had written in another language. Her thumb hovered over the phone. “What if she calls?”
“Then you answer if you want to answer. Not because she commands it.”
Megan’s lips pressed together. “You make it sound easy.”
“No. I make it sound like a sentence. You are the one who has to survive sending it.”
For several seconds, Megan did not move. Then she typed the words exactly as Valerie had said them and hit send so quickly she seemed to surprise herself. She dropped the phone on the desk and pushed back in her chair.
“I’m going to throw up,” she said.
“That seems premature.”
Megan laughed again, and this time it sounded almost real.
The phone rang twenty-eight seconds later.
Megan flinched. Valerie noticed it, the whole small collapse of her shoulders, and felt an unwelcome tug of pity. She had not come to this building to become tender toward anyone. Tenderness was costly. It made you responsible.
“Do I answer?” Megan whispered.
“Do you want to?”
“No.”
“Then don’t.”
The phone rang until it stopped. Then it rang again. Then a text arrived, followed by another. Megan pressed both hands flat on the desk and stared at the screen. Valerie did not reach for the phone. She had already understood something important: if she answered for Megan, nothing would change. The girl needed words, not a ventriloquist.
After the third call, silence returned.
Megan exhaled as if she had been underwater.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay, I didn’t die.”
“Most boundaries are like that.”
Megan looked at her. “Do you say things like that to your daughter?”
The question irritated Valerie because it was accurate enough to sting.
“My daughter does not ask me for boundaries. She gives unsolicited advice from Nevada.”
“Maybe she learned from someone.”
Valerie reached for her purse. “Your free sample is over.”
Megan paid her forty dollars from the ATM downstairs because neither of them could decide what such work was worth. On the receipt, Megan wrote Conversation practice — 1 hour, then laughed and folded it into her wallet as if it were contraband.
They agreed to meet twice a week, not at the workforce center. Valerie made that condition firm. She had no interest in being seen as a woman who could not get hired, then accidentally became someone’s rented mother. Megan suggested a coffee shop, but Valerie rejected it because public crying over parental texts did not seem dignified. They settled on Megan’s apartment for Saturday calls and short phone check-ins during the week.
On the bus home, Valerie held the forty dollars inside her glove and felt ridiculous.
She also felt useful.
By Thursday, Megan had sent six screenshots. Carol — Valerie learned the mother’s name on the second day — objected to Megan’s breakfast, her sweater, her dating profile, a photograph Megan had posted with coworkers, and the fact that she had not returned a missed call while in a staff meeting.
Each time, Valerie drafted a response. Each time, Megan argued.
“That sounds cold.”
“It sounds clear.”
“She’ll say I don’t love her.”
“Then say, I love you, and I’m still not discussing this.”
“That sounds like something from therapy.”
“You have a therapist. Use the vocabulary.”
On Saturday, Valerie arrived at Megan’s apartment at 10:55 a.m. for an 11:00 call. The building was a tired brick walk-up near the Blue Line, close enough to the tracks that the windows shivered every few minutes. Megan’s apartment was small but not dirty, though it carried the clutter of a woman at war with herself: laundry basket in the living room, unopened mail on the counter, three half-finished water bottles beside the couch, a stack of self-help books with bookmarks in the first fifty pages.
The kitchen smelled of cinnamon rolls.
“You baked?” Valerie asked.
Megan looked embarrassed. “Stress.”
There were six rolls in the pan and one missing. Valerie noticed the trash can under the sink had a fast-food bag tucked beneath paper towels, hidden badly. She noticed, too, because she was the sort of woman who noticed kitchens. Then she told herself not to look.
Carol called at exactly 11:02.
Megan put the phone on speaker and sat at the table with the legal pad. Valerie took the chair beside her, pen ready.
“Hi, Mom,” Megan said, too brightly.
“Well, at least you’re alive,” Carol replied. Her voice was not monstrous. That was the worst part. It was warm, middle-aged, brisk, the voice of a woman who might bring casseroles to church suppers and remember which neighbor had knee surgery.
“I was at work when you called.”
“You have breaks.”
Valerie wrote: I’ll call when I’m available. Not during work.
Megan read it, hesitated, then said, “I’ll call when I’m available, Mom. Not during work.”
There was a pause.
“Excuse me?”
Megan’s eyes widened. Valerie underlined the sentence on the paper and pointed.
“I said I’ll call when I’m available,” Megan repeated. Her voice shook, but it held.
Carol sighed. “You sound strange. Are you with someone?”
Megan looked at Valerie in panic.
Valerie wrote: I’m home. I’m practicing not apologizing for having a job.
Megan choked silently, half horrified and half amused. She did not say that sentence. Instead, she said, “I’m home. I’m just trying to be clearer.”
“Clearer,” Carol repeated. “Is that what that therapist told you?”
Megan’s face changed. Valerie saw the girl begin to disappear from it.
For the next thirty minutes, they worked like that. Carol pushed, Megan folded, Valerie wrote, Megan softened the line until it was nearly useless, Carol pushed again. It was exhausting in a way Valerie had not expected. She had believed cruelty would announce itself. Instead, Carol’s control came wrapped in concern. Are you sure you should eat that? I only worry because men are cruel. I don’t want you embarrassing yourself. Your father would hate seeing you like this. I’m the only person honest enough to tell you.
When the call ended, Megan leaned back and covered her face.
“I hate her,” she said into her palms. “And then I hate myself for hating her.”
Valerie capped the pen. “Both can be true.”
Megan lowered her hands. “Did you hate your mother?”
“No.”
“Your father?”
“No.”
“Then who taught you to sound like that?”
Valerie stood to rinse her coffee cup. “I did not come here to be analyzed.”
“No. You came here to analyze me.”
“I came here because you pay in cash.”
Megan smiled, but it faded quickly. She picked up her phone and played a voicemail Carol had left earlier that week. Valerie did not ask why. Perhaps Megan needed a witness. Perhaps she needed someone else to hear it and confirm it existed.
Carol’s voice filled the kitchen.
“Meggie, I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m trying to save you from waking up at forty and realizing nobody chose you because you made yourself impossible to love.”
Valerie’s hand tightened around the mug. She had never used those words with Mia. But she had used words close enough…
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