She blinked like I’d just slapped her. “What? What are you talking about?”
I held up the note. My hand was shaking so hard the paper rustled. “Suzie left this. She’s gone, Mom. She said to ask you why.”
Don’t play dumb. She left the hospital without telling me. Left me with our newborns and this cryptic message. What did you say to her? What did you do?”
She stood there in silence, casserole dish still in her hands like it weighed a hundred pounds. Then she quietly walked to the kitchen and placed it down on the counter, her back to me.
“I just… I warned her,” she said finally, her voice low. “I told her not to make the same mistake your father and I did.”
“What does that even mean?” I stepped toward her, desperate for clarity. “What mistake?”
She turned to face me. Her eyes were misty. “Loving someone who doesn’t love you back the same way. Someone who sees love as a burden instead of a bond.”
That’s your trauma, not mine!” I shot back, more harshly than I meant. “Suzie and I… we weren’t perfect, but we were good. At least I thought we were.”
“She told me things,” my mom said, her voice cracking. “When you weren’t around. How overwhelmed she was. How she felt trapped. How scared she was to become a mom when she still didn’t know who she was as a woman.”
I shook my head. “Why didn’t she tell me that?”
“Because she was trying to be everything you wanted. And I told her she didn’t have to do that. I told her you’d be fine without her. That your family would support you, that those babies would have love no matter what.”