Don’t Let Me Go(103)

“No, thanks.”

“You used to love it when we played checkers.”

“I just don’t feel like it, is all.”

“Want to walk down to the boulevard and get an ice cream? Can’t very well say you’re not in the mood for that.”

“Yeah, I can. I’m not in the mood for that.”

Grace’s mom stepped between Grace and the TV set, and turned off the show. She stood looking down at Grace, and Grace had to crane her neck back painfully to even see her mom’s face hovering up there, high above her.

“I’m having a little trouble,” her mom said, “with how you haven’t even said you’re happy to be home. Or that you’re proud of me for my thirty days. I worked hard for those thirty days. And you’re so bent out of shape about some neighbors and a cat that you don’t even seem to have noticed. You haven’t even told me I did a good thing.”

Grace sighed.

“That part was good,” she said.

Her mom threw up her hands, literally, and stomped away.

? ? ?

Yolanda came by the following day after work. About six thirty. And she brought a pizza. Pepperoni and double cheese.

“Thanks,” Grace said, and took one slice.

“Whoa,” Yolanda said, more or less to Grace’s mom, because Grace had walked away by then. “She been like this ever since—”

“No,” Grace’s mom said. “Sometimes she’s even worse.”

“How ‘bout a family chat?”

“I don’t want to hear it again,” Grace’s mom said.

“I’ll chat,” Grace said.

Grace sat on one end of the couch with her pizza, and Yolanda sat at the other end. Grace’s mom stayed at the kitchen table, lit a cigarette, and looked the other way.

“I hate it when you smoke in the house,” Grace said.

“I know you do,” her mom said. “But you don’t always get your way.”

“I don’t ever get my way,” Grace said.

“Hey, hey, whoa,” Yolanda said. “Chatting, not bickering. Useful chatting. Eileen, Grace just told you how she felt about something, and you totally blew her off. You want to do that one over?”

Grace’s mom sighed.

“I know I used to smoke outside. And I know you liked that better. But now I feel like I have to watch you every minute. I feel like if I turn my back for even that long you’ll go running to see one of the neighbors.”

“So? Would that be such a terrible thing?”

“Whoa, whoa, Grace,” Yolanda said. “Useful chatting. If your mom promises to go back to smoking outside, do you promise not to go anywhere while she’s gone?”

Grace sighed. Sniffled.

“Yeah, OK.”

“Listen to her,” Grace’s mom said. “She sounds like a wrung-out dishrag. We used to be great together. We used to be all we needed, just me and Grace against the world. Now she’s moping around like a sick puppy because I won’t let her see those awful people.”

“They’re not awful people!” Grace shouted.

“Eileen! Foul!” Yolanda barked. “Do that one over.”

“OK. Fine. I’m sorry. Because I won’t let her see her friends. She used to be happy with me. Without all those other people. And now look at her. She looks like she just lost her best friend.”

“I did,” Grace said.

Grace’s mom turned her back and smoked more ferociously.

“Yeah, she looks bad,” Yolanda said. “She was really coming alive for a while there. And now she looks like a plant you forgot to water. Every time I look over at her, I expect to see a dead leaf fall off. Don’t you want her to thrive?”

“I want her to thrive with me,” Grace’s mom said, her back still turned.

“That’s selfish.”

“F—. Screw you, Yolanda.”

“Oh, so that’s how it’s gonna be. Now listen here, little missy. Yeah. It used to be just the two of you, how lovely. But then you took a powder. And that wasn’t Grace’s fault. Now she has new people in her life, and it’s a damn good thing, because without them, she’d either be dead or in the system. You wouldn’t get her back for a year, minimum. She’s here because some people took over for you. You can’t undo that. She bonded with them, and you can’t subtract them no matter how hard you try.”

“Watch me,” Grace’s mom said, stamping out her cigarette on a plate left over from dinner.

“OK, let me put it another way. You can subtract them from Grace’s life, even though that sucks and it’s not fair in any way. And I can’t stop you. But you can’t subtract them from Grace.”

“She’ll get over it,” Grace’s mom said. Quietly. Almost as if she might be crying a little, but Grace couldn’t tell for sure.

“Well, let’s see,” Yolanda said. “Grace? Are you ever gonna get over it?”

“No.”

“She says she’s never gonna get over it, Eileen.”

“People always say that. But then they do.”

“You’re breaking your daughter’s heart. I strongly advise you to consider a compromise.”