I spend the next morning staring at the screen of my television, not even paying attention to the show that’s droning on. Mom comes in, takes a gander at the show, and says, “Didn’t know you were so into deep-sea fishing. Hmmm. Good to know.”
I turn the TV off and brace myself for more lecturing about how stupid I was to be out in the elements or how I never listen to her or do what I’m supposed to. But when I look at her face, really look at it, I see that she looks more sad than angry.
“How are you feeling? Better?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Good. Your doctor says you’ll be released tomorrow. We have to keep up with the breathing treatments. You can’t go back to school yet, but you are out of the woods.” She smiles, but the sadness stays in her eyes and the edges of her mouth turn down. She opens her purse, the new one, the black Kate Spade briefcase-y one. The one Rena makes fun of, but I secretly love. She pulls out a file with papers in it. She opens the file, lays the papers out, flattens them with her hands. “I think we need to have a conversation. One that we should have had a long time ago, I guess.”
“Mom?”
The papers look legal, but I can’t read them.
“These are the papers from your settlement. The one right after you were born.”
I sink back into my bed.
“Your Uncle Steve took care of this for us, as you apparently know.”
A tear rolls down my face. This is the conversation I’d always wanted to have, but now all I want to do is stop it.
“Your father didn’t want you to know about any of this. Still doesn’t want you to know about any of this.”
“Mom—”
She holds her hand flat and straight in the air. “No. It’s time you knew.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She’s not even paying attention to the tears that are streaming down her own face. “I was so excited about having you. Especially after we found out you were a girl. Not that I didn’t love Eric, you know I do, but I was excited to have a daughter. And I wanted everything perfect for you.”
“What does that have…”
Mom shifts in her chair and stares at her hands that hold the papers. “Not everything is in these, you know. It’s not the whole story.”
“What is the whole story, Mom?”
“Your father was working a lot. It wasn’t his fault. We needed the money, and his job was very demanding. So, he took as many assignments as he could.”
A knot forms in my stomach.
“I wanted your nursery finished. Dad and I fought. I was having a difficult pregnancy and was supposed to be on bed rest. But that night, I got it in my head that I wanted the wallpaper up. It was so stupid.” Mom takes a shuddery breath. “I…I fell off the ladder. Dad came home and found me, and we rushed to the hospital.” Mom’s all-out crying now, just really going for it. “You were delivered after a difficult labor. No one could tell if it was the fall or the labor that caused your CP, and the doctor had insurance for this kind of thing…so… Even he admitted we’d need money for your care.”
Mom’s clutching the papers so hard now, and I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.
“I knew there was a reason you didn’t want to stay in AP classes. I never guessed you’d found out about the settlement. But I should have. And I should have told you all of this a long time ago so that you never felt like we lied to you, but I was scared and Dad said it didn’t change anything anyway. But it was wrong. And I’m so sorry.”
I’m so stuck on everything that she’s said already that I barely hear the next words out of my mom’s mouth.
“It was never the doctor’s fault. It was mine.”