“Did something happen to it?”
“No.”
I sat on the edge of the bed.
“Why is the volume so loud?”
Her eyes moved briefly toward my aunt.
It was the smallest reaction, but I caught it.
My mother shrugged.
“So I can hear it.”
“Hear what?”
“The phone.”
“I know.
But why that loud?”
She gave me the same nervous smile I had seen through the screen so many times.
“My hearing isn’t what it used to be.”
That might have been partly true, but it wasn’t the whole truth.
I took her hand.
“Mom.”
She looked at me.
“Were you waiting for us to call?”
Her fingers tightened slightly around mine.
Then she smiled again, but this time she looked away.
“A mother always likes hearing from her children.”
There it was.
Even when given the chance to accuse me, she protected me from my own guilt.
I wanted her to be angry.
Anger would have been easier.
I could apologize to anger.
I could explain myself to anger.
I could promise to do better and feel as though the problem had been properly discussed.
But she wasn’t angry.
She had simply adjusted.
That realization was unbearable.
She had learned to call less because my impatience had taught her that wanting me carried a cost.
I looked down at her hand.
There were lines across it I didn’t remember from childhood.
For most of my life those hands had done things for me without being asked.
Packed food.
Washed clothes.
Checked fevers.
Counted money.
Fastened buttons.
Signed school forms.
Held my face when I was sick.
Waved goodbye when I left home.
Now I was holding that same hand and realizing I had been too busy to hold a conversation.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She immediately shook her head.
“For what?”
That almost destroyed me.
“For being impatient.”
“You work a lot.”
“For not answering.”
“You have your life.”
“For saying I’d call back and forgetting.”
She squeezed my hand.
“It’s okay.”
