Page 76 of Dial F for Finance

“OK. I’ll just get to the point then,” Ma says. “I’m sorry.”

My mother is sober.

I hear it in the clean edges of her voice, and somehow that makes me angrier than yesterday’s Chianti slur. Yesterday, I could blame some of it on the wine. Today, every word will land exactly where she aims it. And I’m so fucking tired of bracing.

“You’re sorry?” I say, turning because Dominic is behind me, shrugging out of his jacket and dropping it over my shoulders. He presses a kiss on the top of my head as he squeezes my upper arms in comfort and stays there, pressed full-length, like a line has finally been drawn and I don’t have to hold myself upright anymore.

“Yes, I’m sorry,” my mother says. “For yesterday. For the cake. For everything.” She clears her throat like it’s the cake needing slicing, not the history between us. “I was mad at your father, and I took it out on you. I know it wasn’t right.”

I say nothing. I let the silence work for me this time.

She sighs, and I can picture her in the kitchen, one hand on her hip, looking out the window at whatever version of Queens she’s decided to hate today.

“You worked hard for your life, Jenna. I should have been proud. I am proud. I just . . .” Her voice wobbles, then sharpens back to the bone. “It’s not easy watching you girls grow up and not need me.”

I wait, because there’s more, and because I can feel Dominic’s arms around me, and it’s the first time I’ve ever had backup on a call with my mother. It’s almost cheating—but I don’t care. I lean back into him and let the silence build so high I can barely see over it.

“I should have baked the cake myself,” my mother says, and the comment immediately raises my hackles because she’s never grateful when we make effort—she only notices when we do it wrong, or when we don’t do it at all.

And somehow it always feels like my fault. Like a problem I’m supposed to fix.

“It was your birthday, Ma. You’re not supposed to make the cake.”

“I suppose. But you girls don’t let me do anything for you anymore. Hailey won’t let me fix her hair, you don’t call and tell me about your job. When you were little, all you did was ask for things. Spaghetti, stories, Band-Aids, cuddles. Now you come home, and you already have everything.” A watery laugh.

The phone trembles slightly in my hand, and for the first time in a long time, it’s not from anger. It’s from this—this sudden, wrenching view of my mother as someone who knows she isn’t needed anymore and has no idea what to do when her reasons for living grow up and find a life outside of her.

“You’re always allowed to bake your own cake if you prefer it, Ma,” I say. “Just maybe skip the wine next time.”

She sniffs a little, the sound heavy. “I’ll try.”

“OK,” I say, knowing it’s a lie, but wishing it were true all the same. I miss my mom. I miss the woman she used to be, before the wine and the bitterness took over. I miss the woman who used to make grilled cheese when we were sick. Who braided Hailey’s hair too tight for school pictures. Who once stayed up until two in the morning sewing a hem on a dress I needed for the school play.

She’s been gone a long time now, but I keep wishing for her all the same.

“I have to go, Ma,” I whisper.

There’s a pause. Then my mother says, “I am trying, Jenna.”

My heart clenches tight in my chest.

“I know,” I say.

And I do. That’s the sucky part.

I hang up and let myself be held.

I lean back into Dominic, letting his warmth leak into my bones until I’m not shaking anymore. It’s a selfish thing to do, this collapse. I could have stood upright on my own. I always do. But for the space of a phone call, I let myself be the version of me that needs something. Someone.

He stays there, hands folded low over my ribs, head tipped forward until his cheek is pressed to the side of my hair.

“You OK?” he asks quietly, voice soft against my skin.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

I want to tell him yes. I want to say I’m OK because I’m here, because the knot in my chest finally loosened in the arms of someone who looks at me like I’m a privilege, not a problem.

But my inventory has always included two contradictory truths: I need no one, and I’m always in need.