Page 143 of Here & There

“Shelby? What’s wrong?”

She called me Shelby. My eyes fill with tears. “Nothing,” I sob.

“Doesn’t sound like nothing.”

“Why are you calling, Mom?”

A beat passes. “Would you like to have dinner with me?”

The place Mom chooses almost makes me cry again. It’s a little restaurant in the neighborhood near where we used to live. A place that, once or twice, she took Jessica and me to. They have a tea service in the afternoons, and we had little cucumber sandwiches from a tiered plate and fawned over the few minutes of attention we got from our busy, terse mother.

I wonder if she even remembers.

Mom’s already at the table when I walk in, shaking out my umbrella from the summer downpour outside.

When I spot her on the far side of the restaurant, I suck in a breath. She looks like she’s aged a decade, and also like she’s lost a bunch of weight. Dark circles ring her eyes. But she smiles when she sees me, raising a frail-looking hand.

“Mom,” I say as I slide into the seat across from her. “Are you dying?” I start to shake. “Please tell me you’re not dying.”

Mom laughs, though her eyes water. “I’m not dying, Shelby. But I am, in a way, rebirthing, I guess you’d say. But you—what is happening with you, Shelby? You look a wreck.”

I immediately bristle. “You need to not comment on my appearance, Mom. That has to stop if you want any kind of relationship with me.”

Mom looks taken aback. “I—you look beautiful, as always. Can I say that?”

“I don’t know, can you? You’ve never said it before.”

She flinches. “I deserved that.”

I sigh. “No, you don’t.”

“I do.”

The server comes then, filling our ice water with soft clinks, and takes our orders. Soup for Mom. An elaborate grain salad for me.

After he leaves, I try to keep my mouth shut. These old jabs that keep wanting to escape won’t help her come out with whatever it is she’s asked me here for.

“So, how is Mac?” Mom asks.

First things first, a gut punch. “We broke up,” I say dully. The words are like a dull lead pencil across paper at this point. Ineffective at expressing the severity of the situation. Dry. Scraping.

“Oh no!” Mom looks genuinely upset. “Why?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say.

Mom looks like she’s biting her tongue. “I think it does. But if you don’t want to tell me, I understand.” She clears her throat. Then she reaches across the table as if she’s going to take my hand, but I pull mine back.

Hurt flashes across her face. I wonder if it’s a fraction of the hurt I felt when I tried to hug her and she just stood there stiffly, patting me on the back like her arms were made of wood.

But still, I soften just a little as she seems to sag in her chair. Then she lifts her chin up, meets my eye, and says, “I…your father and I have separated.”

Water splatters onto the tablecloth from where I’ve been lifting my glass to my lips. “What?”

“I asked him to leave, and he left. It was quite simple, really. I should have done it years ago. Decades, I think.”

My phone buzzes in my blazer pocket. I ignore it.

“Why?” I ask.

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