Chapter 6 - Margaret Came Anyway
She arrived at Lauren's house that evening.
No warning.
A rideshare dropped her at the curb.
I saw her through the front window.
Lauren said:
“I can call the police.”
“Wait.”
“Emily.”
“I’m not going outside.”
Good enough.
Margaret rang the bell.
Lauren opened the door but kept the chain latched.
“You need to leave.”
“I need five minutes with Emily.”
“No.”
Margaret saw me behind her.
Her face changed.
“Emily.”
I stayed ten feet back.
She looked smaller than she had at the top of the stairs.
That did not make her safer.
“I’m sorry you fell.”
Lauren actually laughed.
Margaret's face hardened.
I said:
“You pushed me.”
“I was angry.”
“You pushed me.”
“I touched you.”
“You used both hands.”
Margaret's mouth tightened.
“How would you know?”
I stared.
Then she realized.
“You don't remember.”
“I remember enough.”
Margaret looked toward my wrist brace.
“I didn't mean for that.”
“Which part?”
“For you to go down the whole staircase.”
Lauren's face changed.
So did mine.
Not denial.
Calibration.
I stepped closer.
“What did you mean?”
Margaret's eyes filled.
“I wanted you to stop walking away from me.”
“With a casserole in my hands?”
“You always walk away.”
“I was bringing dinner downstairs.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“You were avoiding me.”
I remembered the argument fifteen minutes earlier.
Margaret had asked whether Jason had found her an apartment.
I told her Jason wasn't finding it.
She was.
I told her she needed a move-out date by the end of the month.
Then I picked up the casserole.
Margaret followed.
“You had already decided.”
“Yes.”
“You didn't ask Jason.”
“It is my house too.”
Her face tightened exactly as it had that day.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep forgetting it.”
Margaret reached toward the door.
Lauren tightened the chain.
“Don't.”
Margaret dropped her hand.
Then looked at me.
“Jason was all I had after Peter died.”
“You have friends.”
“They aren't my son.”
“No.”
“You don't know what it is to lose a husband after thirty-nine years.”
“No.”
“And then every time I needed Jason, you had something else.”
That surprised me.
Not because it was true.
Because she believed it so completely.
“My job?”
“Trips. Dinners. Your friends.”
“My marriage.”
Margaret's face hardened.
“He was my family first.”
No argument could improve that sentence.
I asked:
“Did you shove me in July?”
She stopped.
Lauren looked between us.
Margaret said:
“You were throwing my clothes.”
“I put them in a basket.”
“You were disrespectful.”
“Did you shove me?”
“I moved you.”
“You knew I hit the machine.”
“You bruise easily.”
My stomach tightened.
She remembered.
She had known I was hurt.
She simply had a word that made it smaller.
I asked:
“Thanksgiving?”
Margaret blinked.
“What about it?”
“In the pantry.”
She looked away.
Memory flashed.
Her hand against my side as she forced past.
My ribs hitting the stone counter.
Pain blooming under my sweater.
She had said:
“Then don't stand in my way.”
That had been before she lived with us.
Margaret said:
“You blocked the door.”
Lauren whispered:
“Oh my God.”
I looked at Margaret.
“How many times have you put your hands on me?”
“I have never hit you.”
Different verb.
“That's not what I asked.”
She started crying.
“I loved you when Jason brought you home.”
I almost believed her.
Maybe she had.
“Then he stopped calling me first.”
The sentence came out like an accusation.
Not against Jason.
Against me.
She wiped her face.
“I wasn't trying to hurt you.”
I thought of the stairs.
The laundry room.
The pantry.
“You were trying to move me.”
Margaret stared.
And I understood something I should have understood much earlier.
In Margaret's mind, my body had become part of the argument whenever words stopped giving her what she wanted.
She stepped backward.
Then said:
“Ask Jason what he told me after Thanksgiving.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
She almost smiled.
Not happily.
“He promised he'd make sure you stopped shutting me out.”
Lauren closed the door before I could answer.
I heard Margaret on the porch for several seconds.
Then footsteps.
A car door.
Silence.
I called Jason.
He picked up.
“Did Mom—”
“She came here.”
His voice changed.
“What?”
“She said to ask what you promised after Thanksgiving.”
Silence.
I closed my eyes.
“How many times did you make promises to your mother about me?”
May you like
Jason whispered:
“More than I should have.”
