Kate
“Mom?”
I jostled the phone in the crook of my ear as I took the turn toward my motel.
“Violet!” I cried out. One could almost call it a yell. “We had an agreement. Three phone calls a week… minimum. I haven’t heard from you in almost a week.”
If I was honest, no matter how much I missed my girl, it was convenient that she wasn’t calling because I had to lie to her less. She thought I was in California taking care of a great aunt who she’d never met.
Violet sighed over the phone. I could imagine the slight roll of her eyes, and I missed her so intensely I could barely breathe.
“Well I figured you’d be busy,” she started. “And I texted you,” she countered. “And sent you voice messages. Plus like sixteen videos of everything I ate this week.”
“You did,” I agreed, pulling the sun visor down. “And in all of your videos I saw the same masculine looking hand.”
I hadn’t mentioned the hand in my reply texts because it was not a conversation I wanted to have over text—I didn’t like having any conversations with my daughter over text unless it was about picking up something from the store or what time she was going to be home—since it would be much easier for her to avoid the questions.
“His name is Jacques, and he’s amazing, Mom,” Violet gushed. “I met him on the way to one of my classes. Well, actually, I was lost, and he showed me where I was going. He was so polite. And he understood my terrible French, and Mom, he’s so handsome.”
Violet spoke quickly, her excitement making all of her words run together like when she was a little girl.
I smiled despite the worry that had spiked within me since I saw the edge of that masculine hand. Violet had brought a total of two boys home before. Both of whom she didn’t seem overly interested in, both of whom she’d dated because she thought her father would approve of them. They were football players, from good—read rich—families, handsome, polite. Always shaking Preston’s hand, looking him in the eye and calling me ma’am despite my repeated insistence that they call me by my first name.
Preston wouldn’t have liked that anyway.
Violet had lost her virginity to one of those boys. James. Quarterback. Sweet. Square jawed. Adored Violet—as did most of the boys in her high school. She told me about it the day after it happened. I’d tried my hardest to make sex an open and healthy topic between the two of us. I wanted her to feel comfortable with her sexuality. I didn’t want her having the issues with sex that I did.
So when she told me it hurt, it was quick and James had no idea what he was doing, I was able to tell her that most boys didn’t. Then she promptly told me she was done sleeping with boys.
That had scared the crap out of me. But luckily, she didn’t bring home or sleep with any middle-aged men.
“And Jacques is a student too?” I asked, a pit in my stomach.
Her pause told me all I needed to know.
“He’s technically a teaching assistant,” she said, already defensive. An argument that she’d no doubt rehearsed in her head. “He graduated early… He’s a genius, by the way, Mom. He speaks four languages.”
“He’s a European,” I muttered. “That’s not that impressive.”
“Mom.” The single world was a long-suffering scolding that had luckily occurred only sporadically in her life. The word ‘mom’ could be a signifier of many things. Could communicate hundreds of ailments, needs, moods and wants.
It was the only title that I was proud of my whole life. Mother.
She was my one accomplishment. My kind, well-adjusted, smart, caring and fearless daughter. One who was traveling another continent, falling in love, needing me less.
“How old is he?” I asked with a sigh. My eyes were blurry with tears. Tears due to missing her, grieving for her childhood.
“He’s twenty-six,” she said. “Like a young twenty-six. But also an old soul. Like me.”
I smiled as a tear streamed down my face.
A rabbit scurried across the road, and I swerved to miss it. You weren’t supposed to swerve for animals, but I couldn’t help it. My phone fell from the crook of my ear and down into my lap.
“Crap!” I called out, struggling to catch my phone before it fell down the dreaded crack between the seats. The car swerved ever so slightly, but I didn’t crash into anything.
“Mom?” The word was stated with concern now.
“I’m fine,” I yelled, fumbling for the phone with one hand, steering with the other, and doing my best to peer at the road while bent down.