Nathan chose a café forty minutes from his apartment. He'd been there once for work and remembered that the tables were widely spaced. He wanted somewhere he could leave without passing through a narrow doorway beside his mother.
Emma offered to accompany him. He thanked her and declined. They agreed he would send a message afterward, whether or not the meeting went well.
Laura Mitchell arrived early and waited outside with her folder under one arm. Nathan watched her through the window for a moment before opening the door.
She wore a blue coat and low shoes. He noticed that she had the same crooked little finger as he did. The resemblance made him feel tender and angry at once.
“Thank you for coming,” she said.
“This isn't an invitation to the rest of my life.”
“I understand.”
They ordered tea. Nathan set a folded sheet of paper on the table.
“I have questions. I don't want you to explain things away.”
“I'll do my best.”
“Did you miss my eleventh birthday because you were drinking?”
She looked at her cup.
“Yes. I had been in a program, and I relapsed the week before. I was ashamed. I didn't call.”
“Dad said you forgot.”
“I didn't forget. I made a promise I couldn't keep, and I left you waiting.”
He stared at her. A part of him had wanted a story in which she had been prevented from coming. The truth offered no such relief.
“Did you send me letters after he told you to stop?”
“Yes. Some of them came back. Some didn't.”
“Why didn't you contact me directly when I was eighteen?”
She admitted she had tried once, through an old email address, then stopped. She was afraid of rejection. She also had stretches when she wasn't stable enough to maintain contact.
“I'd like to say I respected your choice,” she said, “but mostly I was afraid of hearing it.”
Nathan unfolded a photocopy of a card he had found in Richard's box.
“You wrote this when I was sixteen. I never saw it.”
Her face tightened. She didn't reach for it.
“I remember writing that.”
“Who told you I was in the school play?”
“Susan.”
Nathan almost laughed. Susan, whom he loved, had quietly sent updates to a woman she also helped keep at a distance.
“Why?”
“She said you were doing well. She thought I should know that much. She asked me not to contact you through her.”
There were no easy categories for any of it.
They spoke for forty minutes. Nathan didn't ask to hear about every year of his mother's life. He asked why she had called the bakery.
“I thought if I could get a message into the cake box, you'd have to see it,” she said. “When David refused, I got angry. I called the next day and made the false request. I wanted him to come back and argue with me. I thought a problem with the pickup would force it.”
“You chose a day that was about Emma.”
“Yes.”
“You made a stranger afraid her husband was cheating.”
“I didn't know that would happen.”
Before the café meeting, Nathan practiced his questions with his therapist. He felt foolish reading from a sheet of paper, like a child rehearsing an apology. The therapist reminded him that the meeting was not an examination and he wasn't required to stay if his mother ignored his limits.
“What if she cries?” he asked.
“She may cry. You can be respectful without changing your questions.”
“What if I cry?”
“Then you cry. It doesn't decide what happens next.”
Nathan folded the page into quarters and put it in his jacket. Outside the office, he called Emma and told her he'd set a date for the meeting. She asked whether he wanted company before or afterward. He chose afterward.
On the morning itself he woke early and made toast. He was halfway through a slice before noticing he hadn't tasted it. Emma came into the kitchen and asked whether he wanted the car. He told her he'd drive himself.
“You can leave at any point,” she said.
“I know.”
She squeezed his shoulder and went to work. Her normal departure helped him more than a long speech would have.
After the meeting, he sat in his parked car and took a slow inventory of what his mother had said. She had admitted missing visits because of drinking. She said Richard had kept some letters. She had described the fear that made her stop trying. Nathan didn't know which parts would feel different tomorrow.
He wrote three sentences in the notes on his phone so his memory wouldn't rearrange the conversation later. Then he sent Emma the message they'd agreed on: Finished. Safe. Can we meet at your office?
She replied almost immediately. Yes.
When he reached her building, she was waiting beneath the awning with an umbrella. Rain had just started. They walked to the car without discussing his mother until he was ready.
Nathan told Emma that the hardest part had been noticing his mother's hands. He remembered those hands fastening buttons on his coat. For years he'd remembered mostly the disappointment of waiting. Sitting across from her made the earlier affection visible too.
“Does that make you want to see her again?” Emma asked.
“I don't know. It makes me sad for the little boy who loved her before everything got difficult.”
Emma didn't try to improve the sentence. She reached across the console and rested her hand beside his. He took it when the traffic light turned red.
“But you knew you were using her name.”
She looked up. “Yes.”
Nathan wasn't interested in a longer apology. He told her that any future contact depended on her respecting the boundary, even when she felt frightened or impatient.
“Do you think we could meet again?” she asked.
“I don't know.”
“Can I send you a card on your birthday?”
“Ask me nearer the time.”
She nodded and let the question rest.
At the door she offered to pay for both teas. Nathan paid for his own. He wanted the meeting to belong to neither of them as a favor.
He went straight to Emma's office building, where she met him outside. He didn't want to drive home alone yet.
“She told the truth about some things,” he said.
“Do you believe her?”
“Some of it. I'll have to check other parts.”
Emma opened the passenger door.
“You don't have to decide today.”
For dinner they bought groceries and cooked soup. Nathan chopped carrots too large and Emma laughed at him. He laughed back, then went quiet.
“I used to think if I ever met her again, I'd know whether I loved her.”
“And?”
“I still don't know. But I don't need to settle that before tomorrow.”
Emma kissed his shoulder.
He sent his mother a brief message confirming that the meeting had ended safely and that he needed time. She replied with a single sentence: I will wait for you to decide.
He placed the phone face down and helped Emma clear the plates.
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: A Family Dinner Exposed Richard’s Resentment and Made Nathan Defend His Own Right to Ask Questions
The Cake Shop Clerk Refused My Name, and an Ordinary Wedding Errand Turned Into a Question
Part 9 of 16
