The worst thing about uncertainty was how easily it started to feel like knowledge.<\/p>\n
I had been thinking about Marcus's call for so long that every word seemed familiar.<\/p>\n
But familiarity wasn't proof.<\/p>\n
I knew what he had told me.<\/p>\n
I knew what Sylvia had shouted.<\/p>\n
And I knew Chloe was supposed to be at the downtown bus terminal.<\/p>\n
Everything beyond that remained unanswered.<\/p>\n
I looked at my phone again.<\/p>\n
There had been no conversation with Chloe.<\/p>\n
No explanation from her.<\/p>\n
No chance to ask whether she was safe.<\/p>\n
I could feel myself becoming angry all over again.<\/p>\n
Marcus had left me with questions that no mother should have been expected to answer alone.<\/p>\n
He had called before dawn on Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n
He had spoken about his wife as if she were something he no longer wanted.<\/p>\n
And he had expected me to handle the situation.<\/p>\n
Just like that.<\/p>\n
I wanted to believe I had misunderstood him.<\/p>\n
But I hadn't misunderstood his words.<\/p>\n
He had made his position clear.<\/p>\n
What I didn't understand was why.<\/p>\n
That was the question I kept returning to.<\/p>\n
Why had Chloe ended up at the terminal?<\/p>\n
Why had Marcus decided she couldn't come back?<\/p>\n
Why had Sylvia considered a rug more important than explaining what happened?<\/p>\n
I couldn't answer any of it.<\/p>\n
My thoughts kept circling the same few facts.<\/p>\n
The time.<\/p>\n
The station.<\/p>\n
The accusation.<\/p>\n
The money.<\/p>\n
The CEO.<\/p>\n
I had spent years teaching myself not to make judgments from incomplete information.<\/p>\n
Yet there I was, standing in my kitchen, doing exactly what I had warned myself against.<\/p>\n
I was building explanations.<\/p>\n
Then rejecting them.<\/p>\n
Then building different ones.<\/p>\n
It accomplished nothing.<\/p>\n
I looked toward the counter.<\/p>\n
The pies remained where I had left them.<\/p>\n
Earlier, I had cared whether they would be ready for Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n
Now I barely noticed them.<\/p>\n
I thought about Chloe's careful habits.<\/p>\n
She would have made a list for an important morning.<\/p>\n
She would have checked what needed doing.<\/p>\n
She would have prepared for things that might go wrong.<\/p>\n
That was the daughter I knew.<\/p>\n
But the fact that she liked planning did not mean life always followed her plans.<\/p>\n
And it did not mean she could never become overwhelmed.<\/p>\n
I knew better than to turn someone's ordinary habits into a guarantee.<\/p>\n
Still, Marcus's description troubled me.<\/p>\n
He hadn't spoken about Chloe as a complicated person who might be struggling.<\/p>\n
He had given me a dismissive label.<\/p>\n
Then expected me to accept it.<\/p>\n
I remembered asking him what happened.<\/p>\n
His refusal remained as clear as the rest of the conversation.<\/p>\n
He had told me to ask Chloe.<\/p>\n
Then he ended the call.<\/p>\n
At first, I had felt insulted.<\/p>\n
Now I was beginning to understand that the only useful thing in his response was the direction it pointed me.<\/p>\n
Chloe needed to speak for herself.<\/p>\n
I had no reason to keep arguing with someone who refused to explain.<\/p>\n
But I also had no reason to decide that every accusation was false.<\/p>\n
The truth might be difficult.<\/p>\n
It might contain mistakes by people I loved.<\/p>\n
I needed to be prepared for that.<\/p>\n
I had to listen before deciding what I believed.<\/p>\n
That was the standard I had followed professionally.<\/p>\n
It couldn't become less important simply because my daughter was involved.<\/p>\n
I picked up my phone again.<\/p>\n
The screen offered no answers.<\/p>\n
I was still frightened.<\/p>\n
Still angry.<\/p>\n
Still uncertain.<\/p>\n
But one decision hadn't changed.<\/p>\n
I would not allow Marcus's voice to be the only one heard.<\/p>\n
The worst thing about uncertainty was how easily it started to feel like knowledge. I had been thinking about Marcus's call for so long that every word seemed familiar. But … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39313,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39293\/revisions\/39313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}