“Mom,” she whispered one night, voice shaking, “I don’t think I belong here.”
“Yes, you do,” I said, sitting on the side of my bed with my phone pressed so tight to my ear it hurt. “You belong anywhere you decide to stand.”
“What if I fail?”
“Then you fail one exam, not your life.”
She laughed through tears. “You always say things like that.”
“Because they’re true.”
After a few months, the calls changed.
They got shorter. Hurrying. Distracted. Sometimes she would say, “I’ll call you later, Mom,” and then not call until the next day. Sometimes she sounded tired in a way I could not reach through the phone. Sometimes, when I asked what was wrong, she said, “Nothing. Just hospital placement stuff.”
A mother’s mind is dangerous when it has silence to work with.
So I started asking questions.
