“Okay,” she says, eyes rolling.
This is going to be okay. We can mend our relationship. It’s just going to take some work.
“I miss you and dad,” I say.
It’s like a forcefield of energy hits us both straight in the chest. “You… what?” she asks, stunned.
My throat swells. “I miss us,” I say, tearing up. “Our family. What we used to have.”
She turns her head away from me, but I can see that she’s also on the verge of tears. “Don’t do this,” she says. “You know I don’t like talking about my Jack.”
Jack. My father. The man who made me who I am.
“You’ve kept a wall up for so long, mom, and so have I,” I say. “But we don’t need to keep hiding from what happened. I know you hate me for it. Maybe it wasn’t my decision to make.”
“It wasn’t.”
Tears roll down my cheeks. “But what I do know is we all die sooner or later. And while we’re alive, I want to be your friend. Shit, mom. I want to be your daughter again.”
Normally, my mom doesn’t cry. She is tough as nails – the kind of woman who’d rather poke at your flaws than mend a wound.
But she’s crying. And once she gives in to her real emotions, she has her arms wrapped around my neck. Each tear falls against the tops of my wrists and forearms, and her chest soon convulses with a deep emotional release.
I hold on as tight as I can. I’m never letting go of this, no matter how hard it’s been.
“I loved him so much,” she says, pulling back to wipe her cheeks clean. “He was my Jacky-boy.”
When she talks about him, her eyes light up. Her smile looks wistful and young again.
“He was the best dad a girl could’ve ever had,” I say.
My mother nods and puffs her cheeks as she exhales. “You were like two peas in a pod,” she says. “Always hanging out. I just loved that.”
When she glances down, her shoulders hunch. Her smile starts to fade. She’s going back into the comfort of sadness again. It’s a looming skyscraper she built to keep everyone away.
If she could disappear, I think she’d do it. It’s up to me to keep her here.
“I’m sorry for telling him to get help,” I say.
“You...” She sniffs and laughs, but it’s strained and awkward. “I just don’t understand. How could he die like that?”
I bite the side of my cheek and try to stay strong for her. But all of my hurt comes barreling out of me. We’re just a mother-daughter mess, but this is the most we’ve talked in ages.
This is a total break-through.
“The doctors told me it was time. They couldn’t revive him,” I cry. “I fought, and I fought, and I fought with that hospital for him. But we didn’t have the insurance to cover another transplant, and if he survived—”
She stops me. “He would have been brain dead,” she says.
I nod. “Yeah.”
It’s almost impossible to go there. The image of my father like that haunted me then as much as it does now. The chances were slim to none, and I didn’t want him to die in pain.
I had to say goodbye.
It takes her some time to admit this, but it finally escapes her lips. “I don’t blame you,” she says.
“Then why—”