Chapter 4: Everything She Said Behind My Back
I didn't sleep that night.
Daniel did — eventually.
He'd said what he needed to say and somewhere around midnight his breathing slowed and steadied and I lay next to him in the dark listening to the ceiling fan turn.
My mother.
I kept trying to build a version of it that made sense.
A misunderstanding.
A comment taken out of context.
Something Ethan had misread or exaggerated the way teenagers do.
But I'd seen my son's face on that deck.
That wasn't exaggeration.
That was a boy repeating something he'd heard enough times to believe.
In the morning I called her.
She picked up on the second ring, the way she always does, like she'd been waiting.
"Good morning, sweetheart."
"Mom." I kept my voice level.
"I need to ask you something."
"Of course.
What's wrong?"
"Have you been talking to Ethan about my weight?"
A pause.
Short, but there.
"I talk to Ethan about all kinds of things.
He's my grandson."
"That's not what I asked."
"I don't know what you think I said—"
"Mom.
He stood in front of his entire family yesterday and told me he didn't want a photograph with me because of the way I look.
He's fifteen.
He didn't arrive at that on his own."
"Children notice things," she said.
"That's not my fault."
My hand tightened on the phone.
"What exactly did you say to him?"
"I may have mentioned — and I say this because I love you — that you've let things slide a little since you went back to work.
That's not a criticism.
That's concern."
"You said I don't respect my family."
Silence.
"Ethan told Daniel.
Daniel told me.
So please don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about."
"I was trying to help him understand—"
"Understand what?
That his mother is an embarrassment?"
"I never used that word."
"What word did you use?"
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"I told him," she said, her voice shifting into something cooler, "that a woman who stops taking care of herself sends a message to her family.
That was all."
"That was all," I repeated.
"You've gained weight, sweetheart.
I'm not the only one who's noticed."
Something in my chest went very still.
"You said that to my son."
"I said it because someone has to.
Daniel certainly isn't going to."
"You had no right."
"I have every right.
I'm his grandmother.
I love that boy.
I'm trying to make sure he grows up with—"
"With what?
With contempt for his mother?"
"With standards," she said.
"With an understanding of how the world works."
I stood up from the kitchen table.
I didn't plan to.
My body just did it.
"I'm going to need some time before I speak to you again," I said.
"Oh, don't be dramatic."
"I mean it, Mom."
"You're overreacting.
This is exactly what I'm talking about — you've become so sensitive—"
I ended the call.
My hands were shaking.
I set the phone face-down on the counter and stood there until they stopped.
Then I heard a sound behind me.
I turned.
Ethan was standing in the kitchen doorway in his pajamas, hair still flat from sleep.
He'd heard.
I could see it in his face — not all of it, but enough.
"Mom," he said.
"It's okay," I said automatically.
"It's not." He crossed the kitchen and stopped in front of me.
He was almost as tall as me now.
I kept forgetting that.
"It's not okay.
What I said yesterday — I don't know why I said it like that.
Out loud like that.
In front of everyone."
"Ethan—"
"I've been hearing it for months and it just — it came out.
And I knew the second I said it that it was wrong.
I knew it before I finished saying it."
His voice cracked on the last word.
I pulled him in and he let me, which he hadn't done in longer than I could remember.
"I know," I said into his shoulder.
"I know."
We stood there in the kitchen for a while.
Neither of us said anything else.
But there was still a question I hadn't answered.
May you like
Still a woman who had spent months turning my son against me, one quiet comment at a time.
And she thought it was over.
