Chapter 3 - THE CALL TO MY EIGHT-YEAR-OLD
Diane had contacted Eli through his tablet at 8:14 that morning.
He showed me when we reached home.
The call log was still there.
Twenty-three minutes.
My mother had spoken privately to my eight-year-old for twenty-three minutes before a barbecue she knew I was attending.
“What did she say?”
Eli wiped his face.
“She said you’re having money problems.”
True.
Not her business.
“She said sometimes moms who don’t have enough money get stressed and make bad decisions.”
I felt sick.
“What else?”
“She said Aunt Denise has a big house.”
Of course.
“And Harper has two parents.”
My grip tightened around the steering wheel even though we were parked.
“Did she say you would live there?”
Eli nodded.
“Only if you got angry today.”
There it was.
Not discipline.
Conditioning.
“If Mom yells or throws something or leaves before everyone finishes eating, then people will know she can’t control herself.”
I closed my eyes.
The burned meat.
The jokes.
The camera.
My mother telling him to accept it.
They had been trying to provoke me.
And my eight-year-old son had spent the afternoon managing my emotions because he thought one angry reaction could cost him his mother.
I turned toward him.
“Eli.”
He looked up.
“You are never responsible for keeping me calm so I can stay your mom.”
“But Grandma said—”
“Grandma was wrong.”
“What if they take me?”
My heart broke.
“No one gets to decide that because I got angry at a barbecue.”
He stared.
“Really?”
“Really.”
Then he asked:
“Even if you’re poor?”
I had to look away.
May you like
Because that sentence told me exactly what my family had been feeding him long before they served him burned fat.
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