Two years later, my mother showed up at my office without an appointment, looking older and more strained than I remembered. She told my assistant that she was family, but I made her wait in the lobby while I finished my work. When I finally went out to see her, she looked at me with a face she probably thought looked tender and called my name.
“Why are you here?” I asked, refusing to move any closer than ten feet away from her.
She asked to talk somewhere private, but I told her no and that I was only interested in protecting my peace. She claimed she was still my mother, but I reminded her that being a mother and giving birth to someone were two very different things. She told me my father was unwell and that Tyler was in trouble with debt and substance abuse.
She told me she wanted her daughter back, but I told her she actually just wanted someone to fix the mess her family had become. She claimed she was sorry, but when I asked her when she had ever actually said the words, she had no answer. I told her that hurt people are still responsible for what they do with their hurt and that I didn’t forgive her.