Burn Our Bodies Down(9)

“No,” Mom says again. “I told you then I was never coming back, and that’s all I have to say.”

Gram’s turn, but it’s quick, and Mom shakes her head. “I’m not,” she says. “I’m not doing this.” Stronger now. She means it. If Mom has her way I will never see Gram, and whatever bridge we just built between us will never be crossed. And I can hear Gram now, loud and wordless from the speaker. If I listen hard, if I wish harder, I can make it my name she’s saying. Come home, Margot. Come home.

Mom takes the phone from her ear. For a moment she doesn’t move. Neither do I. Both of us holding our breath, until she hangs up so hard the receiver clatters back off the hook and dangles there on the cord, swaying back and forth.

“Hey,” I say, as gently as I can, but Mom whips around, so close the ends of her hair snap across my cheek, and I stagger back, into the sprawl of the sun.

“Why would you do that?” she says, frantic. Her skin flushed with anger, scar standing out white. The Bible on the ledge behind her, catching the sun. “You went to Frank’s? You went through my stuff? I told you never to go to Frank’s alone, Margot. I told you.”

“What?” Another fight for the notebook. “No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Just like you told me about her?” I say, gesturing to the phone. “Just like you told me about Phalene?”

She flinches, and of course she knows the name of that town. It’s the place we’ve been hiding from all my life.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mom says. Something animal about the curl of her lips, something I’d be afraid of if I were smarter. “You have no idea, Margot. You talked to her for thirty seconds and you think you can give me shit?”

“For lying to me? Yeah, I do.” It’s climbing up my throat, the real thing I’ve been wanting to ask her ever since that first day I wrote Nielsen at the top of that notebook page. “Why didn’t you tell me about her, Mom?”

“I’m not doing this here,” she says, straightening her shirt and tucking her hair behind her ears. “I’m not fighting with you in the middle of the street.”

She’s locking herself back up, but I won’t let her. There’s nobody around, the sidewalks empty and glazed with heat-shimmer. And I’ve kept this down for so long, so long. Until today, when I heard Gram say my name. “Didn’t you want me to know I have family?” A tremor in my voice, a break. I hate when I get like this, when I let her see how much I care. “Didn’t you want me to know there are people out there who love me?”

“That woman,” Mom hisses, “does not love you.”

I let out a bark of laughter. “What the hell would you know about it?” And I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t take it so wide when there’s plenty to be mad at right in front of me. I am supposed to be quiet, I am supposed to be good, but I was born at war and I can only keep from fighting for so long. “You barely even know I’m here half the time. I take care of myself—I do that for you. You could thank me, you know.”

“Me thank you?” Mom smiles. I can’t stop my mouth from curling in answer. Fighting is when I feel closest to her. She drops her guard and lets me near enough to see her then, because that way she can hurt me.

“Yeah,” I say. A flare in my gut, a warning. This is bait, and I shouldn’t be taking it. But it broke something inside me—Gram on the phone, and Mom nowhere near remorse for keeping me from her. She doesn’t care, so why should I? Why should I pull any punches for her sake? “Yeah, you thank me. Thank me for making a life out of your mess.”

For a second she looks like I’ve hit home. It can’t be real, though. When has anything I’ve ever said mattered to her that much? And it’s gone in a moment, papered over by a grim determination. It must have been nothing. Just the sun in my eyes.

“Listen to me very carefully,” she says through gritted teeth. “I am your mother. Do you know what that means? It means your life is mine. I gave it to you. And I am the only thing keeping you alive. Keeping you safe. So thank me for that.”

She’s handing me a way out of our fight, and every other time I have taken it. Every other time I’ve given ground, tried to rebuild a peace between us because it was worth it. Because she was all I had. But I don’t think that’s true anymore.

“What about everything after?” I say. “Huh? You gave me my life, but there’s more to being a mother than that.”

She shakes her head. “Stop it.”

I can’t. Not now, not when I’m finally saying everything that’s been beating in me like blood. “Don’t you know? The shit you do touches me, Mom. It fucking hurts.”

“You think it doesn’t hurt me?” Her eyes are overbright, her hands trembling as she pushes her hair out of her face. “What about that? What about me, Margot?”

As if we haven’t been answering that question my whole life. And that’s all it takes. That’s the whole of my decision, in one heartbeat. Mom, with me in front of her, with me in pain and alone, and she asks, “What about me?”

“I don’t know. It’s not my job to know,” I say. Maybe it should be harder to talk to her like this. But it feels like relief, drifting and cool. “Honestly, Mom, I don’t care.”