Mom: Or renovate the basement. Valerie is used to being in the background. She can live down there and pay the mortgage while you two take the master. She’ll do it if you say it’s for family. She’s desperate for approval.
There are moments when humiliation burns so hot it circles all the way back to cold. I felt it then. A clearing. A quiet. Not peace. Not even control. Just the sudden understanding that the thing I thought was my life had actually been a stage set, and now I was standing behind it looking at the two-by-fours and peeling paint.
I dropped the iPad onto the sofa and ran to the downstairs bathroom.
My body tried to reject the truth. I leaned over the sink, dry-heaving until tears streamed down my face and my ribs hurt. When I lifted my head, the mirror showed a woman I recognized only by features. Pale skin. mascara smeared at the corners. Thirty-two years old. Educated. Employed. Homeowner. Still somehow stupid enough to mistake hunger for love.
I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water over my face until I could breathe again.
“Get up,” I told my reflection.
The words came from somewhere I had not used in years.