Page 32 of Kitten

“I don’t care about them,” I said. “But they’re a part of my life.”

“Yourlife.” She laughed, the tip of her tongue clinging to her front teeth, the word sharp and hard in her mouth. I felt embarrassed then, for being precious about it, my life. From then on, I would not be able to take it seriously. “Am I not a part of your life?”

Her fists were balled like a child’s. I pictured my hands on her shoulders, and for a moment believed I would push her. Between the new hollows of her face and twist of her mouth she looked unfamiliar, like someone had swapped out my mother in the middle of the night for a cheap replica. When she brought her hand to wipe her nose, the sleeve shifted off her right shoulder to reveal a thin and fraying bra strap. I recognized it. The bra was once mine.

“No,” I said. “You’re not.”

When my mother found me packing my bags, she wept. But I couldn’t stand to look at her anymore, the person she had become in my absence, or just in my ignorance.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “You’re so unhappy there.”

Without missing a beat, I said, “I’m even unhappier here.”

I dipped into my savings to buy a ticket back to the city. The morning of my flight, she was already waiting in the car. We sat in silence for an hour. On the plane, I replayed our conversation, the words I shot out like a weapon.You’re not a part of my life.When I landed in New York, I cried not because I regretted saying it, but because it was true.

I forced myself to look at James. His eyebrows were furrowed. I knew then that he didn’t understand us, me and my mother.

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay?”

“Sorry, hold on, I’m taking it all in. Is that all? You just went back to school, and now you no longer talk?”

“I told her,” I said, “that she wasn’t a part of my life. And then I never reached out again.”

“But she never reached out to you, either. And she ignored your call.”

“I’m done talking about this, I think.” I had already betrayed my mother by telling him about our fight, and he didn’t understand. If James believed I wasn’t responsible for my mother’s happiness, it was useless to explain any further. He would always measure my mother against his, with whom he enjoyed, in my mind, a lovely but simple relationship, neutralized by gender, cocooned by wealth, balanced with two sides. He was white, and white people put their parents in care homes. My relationship with my motheronly had one side: hers. She needed me, and I owed her everything.

I felt dizzy, too small for my body. James could let a feeling sit for hours. I only knew to breathe the feeling bigger, make it terrible, then make it nothing at all. He kissed my fist. “You belong here, you know,” he said. “You belong everywhere. You deserve to have your own life.”

I curled my hand over his to let him think I believed him.

—

That evening, James asked ifI wanted to grab a drink in town with Isabelle.

“I don’t know.” I dangled a feather toy over Silver’s head. Though she was clearly exerting herself, she wasn’t any good at catching the feather. “I think I’d rather stay.”

“At home?”

“I went out earlier,” I said. “Like you wanted.”

James sighed. He seemed tired of playing this game but unwilling to argue after our conversation at the museum. “Aren’t you bored? Isabelle’s one of my best friends. She’s fun, she really likes you.”

I imagined sitting across from Isabelle, coming up with things to say while looking at her beautiful skin. I would think too much about what it was like to be her. I would resist asking the name of her perfume. I would wonder who she loved more, her mother or her father. If she chose her mother, I would feel sorry for her, but if she chose her father, I would feel sorry for her mother.

“It would be nice,” James said. “Get you out of your head.”

“I’m not in my head.”

“Sure.”

“Why can’t you just say that you want me to go? That it’s for you, not for me?”

Silver caught the feather.Yes!I almost cried out, but then she sprung backward and let it go, as if the feather had turned into something sinister. I swished it over her face. Maybe it was inconsiderate of me, but just like that, she became interested again.

“It’s not for me,” James replied. I was relieved. If he did ask me to go for him, I’d likely still refuse, and that probably made me a bad person. “You’ll get along. She likes you.”