Chapter 9 - Mom's Choice
Two days later, my mother requested a private meeting.
Not at her house, and not at my apartment. She asked to meet at a neutral, quiet diner halfway between our homes—the very diner Dad used to take us to for pancakes after Sunday soccer games when Belle and I were young girls.
When I arrived, Mom was sitting in a vinyl corner booth. She wasn’t wearing her usual jewelry or the expensive makeup Belle always bought for her. Her face looked older, lined with heavy wrinkles, but her eyes were clear of the frantic hysteria from the previous night.
I slipped into the booth across from her. “Hello, Mom.”
“Thank you for coming, Elena,” she said softly, wrapping both hands around her ceramic coffee mug. “I know… I know I don't deserve your company.”
The waitress came by, filled my water cup, and left us in silence.
“How is Belle?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral.
“She’s at the house,” Mom whispered, staring down at her coffee. “Her landlord changed the locks on their apartment yesterday because Derek skipped town without paying the balance. Her phones won't stop ringing—reporters, former friends, angry donors. She spends the day sitting in the guest bedroom with the curtains drawn.”
“Has Marcus’s restitution team contacted her?”
Mom nodded slowly. “Yes. Marcus sent an official supervisor to oversee the liquidation of her luxury items. They took her jewelry, her designer handbags, her camera equipment, and her car this morning. The tow truck woke up the whole neighborhood.” Mom’s chin quivered, but she didn't burst into tears. “It was humiliating. But… when I watched that truck pull away, Elena, something snapped inside my head.”
I watched her closely, waiting.
“For ten years, I let Belle convince me that she was fragile,” Mom confessed, her voice thick with regret. “Every time she failed, every time she accumulated debt, she made me feel like it was my fault for not supporting her dreams. When you got sick, I was so terrified of losing you that when Belle said, *‘I can take care of it, Mom, just let me handle the money,’* I chose to look the other way. I wanted to believe she was being a savior so I wouldn't have to face how broken she really was.”
Mom reached across the table, her weathered hand trembling as she touched my fingers.
“You almost died in that hospital bed, Elena. And while you were fighting for your life, I was letting her use you as a billboard. I am so sorry. If you never speak to me again, I will understand.”
I looked down at our hands. The hurt from thirty years of parental neglect didn’t vanish in an instant, but seeing my mother finally strip away the delusion was the first step toward genuine freedom.
“I won’t pay Belle’s debts, Mom,” I said firmly. “And I won’t stop Marcus from handing her files to the prosecutor if she doesn't comply with the full restitution agreement.”
“I’m not asking you to,” Mom replied softly, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. “I told Belle this morning that she has thirty days to find a job—any job, at a grocery store, a warehouse, anywhere—and start paying her own way. If she refuses, I’m changing the locks on the yellow-brick house.”
I took a deep breath. For the first time in my life, my mother was drawing a boundary.
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“Then let’s take it one day at a time, Mom,” I said quietly.
***
