Chapter 13 Esme #2
I stared at the message, vision blurring. Sweet Grady. He always seemed to know exactly when to call or text or stop by with muffins. I loved him so much it hurt. Maybe Robbie was right. I should tell him the truth. We could be poor together, but at least we’d have love.
Esme
Bad day here. Glad you’re coming home tomorrow.
Grady
I’m here if you need me. Can I come by for dinner tomorrow? I have a lot to tell you.
Esme
Yes. Please.
I set the phone down and sat there in the dark, Trevor’s warmth against my legs.
I tried to think my way out of it, the way I always did.
I could pick up extra work. But where? And with what time?
I was already working six days a week and barely keeping up.
I could ask Gillian for a loan. However, I'd already taken so much money from her that I hadn’t paid back.
I could set up another payment plan with the hospital, but that was just rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship.
I ran through the numbers again, the way I had at the hospital, except now there was more.
The STEM program: five-thousand eight-hundred dollars.
New shoes for Madison, and not just one pair either.
She'd been growing all fall, which meant everything was too small, not just the shoes.
Winter was coming. She'd need a coat. Robbie's laptop was held together with electrical tape.
Every solution I could think of led to the same wall.
I didn't have the money. I couldn't earn the money fast enough.
I couldn't borrow the money without drowning in the debt.
And I couldn't keep going like this—patching and juggling and pretending it was fine while my daughter bled in her shoes and my son hid his dreams in a drawer so I wouldn't feel bad.
I had tried everything. For five years, I had tried everything.
It was time to admit defeat. There was only one call left to make.
If I called my parents now, they would insist I move back to Seattle.
If I came home with my tail between my legs, I would never be free.
I'd owe them. And they'd remind me, every chance they got, that I couldn't do it on my own.
That I'd needed them after all. That I'd failed just like they said I would.
But the truth was—I needed them.
I would call them in the morning. I’d admit that I couldn't do this alone. I’d give up everything I'd built so my children could have what they needed. That was what mothers did. That was what I would do.
I made the call at seven the next morning, before the kids were awake. I sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee I couldn’t drink, Trevor at my feet, and dialed my mother’s number. My hands were shaking so badly I had to try twice.
She picked up on the third ring. “Esme?”
The surprise in her voice stung. As if she’d deleted my number and had to check the screen to be sure.
“Hi, Mom.”
A pause. I could hear my father in the background. “Is it Esme?”
“Well,” my mother said. “This is unexpected.”
“I know. I’m sorry it’s been so long.”
“Five years, Esme. Five years without a word. Your father and I thought—well. Never mind what we thought.”
I closed my eyes. I’d prepared for this. I’d known exactly what she would sound like, exactly what she would say. And still it landed like a slap on the face.
“How are the children?” she asked, her voice carefully measured. “I assume Robert is well. And the little one—she must be in school by now.”
“Her name is Madison, Mom. She’s six. She’s in first grade.”
“Of course. Madison.” She said it as though trying on a word in a foreign language. “And Robert?”
“Robbie. He goes by Robbie.”
“Robert is a perfectly good name. I don’t know why you insist on a childish nickname.”
“Mom.” I pressed my fingers against my forehead. “I didn’t call to argue about names.”
Another pause. I heard my father murmur something I couldn’t make out.
“Then why did you call?” my mother asked. Not unkindly, exactly. But not warmly either. The way you’d speak to a colleague who’d missed a deadline. Sort of measured disappointment dressed up as patience.
This was the part where I had to say it. The words I’d been choking on since last night. The words that tasted like surrender.
“I need help.”
Silence. A long one.
“I see,” my mother said.
“Madison broke her arm. She needed surgery. I owe the hospital ten thousand dollars and my insurance won’t cover most of it.
My credit card is maxed. Jeff hasn’t paid child support in almost a year.
The shop is barely breaking even and Robbie—” My voice cracked.
I took a breath. “Robbie got accepted into a summer program. A really prestigious one. For gifted kids in math and engineering. It costs almost six thousand dollars and I can’t pay for it. ”
I waited for her to say something. She didn’t.
“I’ve tried everything,” I said. “I’ve been trying for five years. I work six days a week. I’ve cut everything I can. I’ve—I’ve done my best.”
“Esme.” My father’s voice now. He must have picked up the other phone or my mother had put me on speaker. His tone was gentle, the way it always was. My father had never been the problem. He’d just never been strong enough to stand between my mother and me.
“Hi, Dad.”
“We’re glad you called, sweetheart.”
“Richard, let me handle this,” my mother said. Then, to me: “So. You need money.”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve exhausted every other option.”
It wasn’t a question. She wanted me to say it.
“Yes, Mom. I’ve exhausted every other option.”
“I have to say, Esme, this is not surprising. Your father and I have been expecting this call for years. We told you when you moved to that little beach town that it wasn’t sustainable.
A flower shop?” She said it the way someone might say a lemonade stand.
“In a tourist town? With two children to support? It was never going to work.”
My jaw tightened. Trevor pressed closer against my leg.
“The shop is fine,” I said. “It’s the medical bills and lack of child support.”
“The shop is clearly not fine or you wouldn’t be calling me at seven in the morning after five years of silence.” She paused. “What’s wrong with Jeff that he can’t pay child support?”
“He has trouble keeping a job.”
“As expected. Your father and I told you not to marry that man.”
“You also told me not to divorce him.”
“We told you to think about the children.”
“I did think about the children. That’s why I divorced him.”
The old anger was rising, hot and familiar, pressing against my ribs. This was why I hadn’t called. This was exactly why. Because no matter what I said, no matter how desperate I was, my mother would find a way to turn it into a referendum on every choice I’d ever made.
“Patricia,” my father said quietly. “Let’s not rehash old arguments.’
My mother drew a breath. “All right. Here’s what I propose. Your father and I will help you financially. We can cover the hospital bill and the program for Robert—”
“Robbie.”
“—But you must come home. Stay with us for awhile until you can get back on your feet. There’s plenty of room. The children could go to excellent schools here. You could find a proper job with benefits and a retirement plan. Something stable.”
“I have a job.”
“You have a hobby that you’ve turned into a business, Esme. There’s a difference.”
I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted copper.
“The offer is on the table,” she said. “We’ll send the money for the immediate expenses. But only if you commit to coming home. For the children’s sake, if not your own.”
For the children’s sake. Her favorite weapon. As if I hadn’t been making every single decision for the children’s sake for the last six years of my life.
“Thank you,” I said. The word felt like glass in my throat. “I appreciate it.”
“We love you, Esme. We always have. We just want what’s best for you and the kids.”
She meant it. That was the worst part. She absolutely meant it.
She loved me the only way she knew how—with conditions, corrections, and a running tally of everything I’d done wrong.
It was exactly the same way Jeff had treated Robbie.
Maybe that’s why I’d put up with it for so long. I’d been conditioned for it.
“I know, Mom.”
“All I ask is that you agree to come home. If you do so, your father will wire the money.”
There it was. I knew it was coming. Transactional. My mother was nothing if not predictable.
“Call me when you’ve made your decision,” my mother said. “Give the children our love.”
She hung up. I sat at the kitchen table, phone in my lap, staring at the wall. Trevor looked up at me with his steady brown eyes. The coffee had gone cold. I dropped my head into my hands and cried.
From down the hall, I heard Madison’s voice, groggy and sweet. “Mommy? Can I have pancakes?”
I wiped my eyes, stood up, and went to make pancakes.