And she had watched her own children absorb every bit of it.
Brian looked back down at his phone. “She’s my mother.”
Lauren shifted the laundry basket. “Then maybe try treating her like one.”
Across town, Madison paced through her kitchen in yoga pants and bare feet, retelling the restaurant scene to her best friend on speakerphone.
“She just abandoned us there,” Madison said.
Her friend, Nora, was silent for one second too long.
Madison frowned. “What?”
Nora sighed. “Maddie, you picked an expensive restaurant and told your mother she was paying.” Mother'sDay gifts
“It was Mother’s Day.”
“Exactly.”
Madison stopped pacing.
Nora continued carefully. “I love you, but you’ve complained for years that your mom inserts herself with money. Maybe she finally stopped.”
Madison’s face flushed. “That’s not fair.”
“Maybe not,” Nora said. “But is it wrong?”
Madison hung up soon after, angry enough to cry and too proud to admit why.
Kevin dealt with it differently. He went quiet. That evening, he sat in his garage with a beer sweating on the workbench beside him, looking at the old motorcycle he had been rebuilding for three years. His mother had paid for half the parts. He had never paid her back. Mother'sDay gifts
Amber came out and leaned against the doorframe.
“Your mom texted you?” she asked.
“Just the group.”
Amber nodded. “You should apologize.”
Kevin gave a humorless laugh. “For brunch?”
“For the last ten years.”
He looked at her sharply, but she did not look away.
The next morning in Rome, Helen walked to the Pantheon.
read more in next page
