She said it so thoughtfully, so honestly. It stung. Mom popped the plastic top off the chicken and thunked the bird onto a plate. She carved with an eye on the wing. It had always been Dad’s favorite too. She offered me the first one.
I shook my head, but I pulled a chair to the counter and watched as she worked. It took a long week, but it seemed like she’d finally regained her strength from the two-night hospital stay. She was her old self again.
Or her new self?
Mom praised the Lord after a bite of a particularly juicy piece of chicken.
“I know I don’t say it enough,” Mom said. “But it feels like I can taste things again. The chicken tastes chickenier. The cookies are sweeter.” She sipped some water and sighed. “Just wonderful. It’s the simple things, Honor. If the world tries to take them away from you, you just stand up and say no. That world will listen.”
Not in all things unfortunately. I reached for a drumstick and peeled it off the bird, licking the juices from my finger.
“When was the last time we had a dinner together?” I asked.
Mom tapped the wing bone on her plate. “Well, this week’s been busy, especially with the sickness. Oh.” She nodded at me. “You snuck me a sandwich while I was in the hospital.”
“I mean…a real dinner. That doesn’t count.”
“Of course it does, baby. Doesn’t matter where you break the bread. Just matters that we’re together. A family.”
Now it really hurt. I didn’t know if it was Mom’s newfound optimism or if she generally thought life was better than it was.
I thought back through the summer, through the breakfasts I’d skipped and the dinners I’d missed because of the church. Every day I’d raced from activity to charity to class, and I couldn’t remember a time when I’d actually sat down at the table with Mom.
And that was a horrible, unconscionable realization.
As much as I hated to think of him, hated the pain that came from remembering the comfort he offered, Rafe was right. I needed to talk to Mom.
I had needed to do it for a long time.
I picked at the chicken, but my appetite faded. I wished my voice hadn’t trembled.
“Mom?”
She pulled a glass from the cabinet and topped it off with a bit of sweet tea for me. Her eyes met mine. Clear, focused. Nothing like what I remembered.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“For what?”
“Everything.”
“What?” She laughed and pushed my plate towards me. “Eat your dinner before it gets cold.”
I couldn’t eat now. I had to make her listen.
“No, Mom. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I haven’t talked to you before this. I’m sorry I haven’t taken the time to eat a proper meal with you. I’m just sorry.”
“Baby, what are you talking about?”
“I thought you had relapsed last week. I thought when we took you to the hospital, it was because you OD’ed on something—anything. I’ve been waiting all summer for you to break, even though I know you’ve been clean.”
Mom busied herself over the sink, washing the grease from her fingers. “Don’t, Honor. You don’t have to.”
“And I’m sorry I’ve been embarrassed by you. This whole summer. I came home, and I didn’t know what I’d find. I made everything worse. I doubted you. I was ashamed of you. I made this hard for you. All of this. The church. The bills. The groceries. Even this apartment.”
“Honor—”
“I’ve never told you how proud I am of you.” The words poured from me now, untapped and trembled. “You’ve changed. I don’t recognize you, and that’s a good thing. But I’ve treated it like it’s some failure, like it’s a fault of yours, and it’s not. You fixed your life, and I should be commending you. I should be making you chicken and sitting with you at dinner and thanking you for the changes you made.”
I looked down, away from her. A napkin tangled in my lap. I pressed sticky fingers into the paper and tore it to shreds.
“You’ve been mad at me,” Mom said.
“Yeah. I think. I don’t know.”
She lowered her glass to the table. “I deserve it.”
“You don’t.”
“Yes. I do. Honor, I take full responsibility for my actions. All of them. For what I’ve done in the last fifteen minutes to everything I ruined in the past fifteen years.”
“You shouldn’t. You’re a new person now.”
“No, baby. I’m not. I’m the same person, and to deny me that past is to deny who I am. If I don’t have that history, I can’t see what I’ve overcome. If I don’t acknowledge what I’ve lost, I won’t be able to gain it back, brick-by-brick.” She tapped the counter. “Don’t you apologize to me. I won’t tolerate it.”