The following morning, I found myself reaching for the telephone before I had even finished my coffee.<\/p>\n
I wanted to call Spencer.<\/p>\n
That had become a habit I couldn't easily break.<\/p>\n
I wanted to know how he was feeling before I made plans for my own day.<\/p>\n
I wanted to hear whether anything had changed.<\/p>\n
I wanted to be sure he hadn't spent the night worrying about something I could have helped with.<\/p>\n
I held the telephone for a moment.<\/p>\n
Then I put it down.<\/p>\n
I wasn't going to stop checking on him.<\/p>\n
I wasn't going to turn concern into a punishment.<\/p>\n
But I needed to stop behaving as though I had to be available every moment to prove that I loved him.<\/p>\n
I finished my coffee first.<\/p>\n
Then I washed the cup and set it aside.<\/p>\n
Afterward, I called him.<\/p>\n
He answered and greeted me.<\/p>\n
We spoke about how he was feeling.<\/p>\n
He said he was still waiting for more information.<\/p>\n
I told him I hoped he would get some answers soon.<\/p>\n
The conversation was calm.<\/p>\n
There was no argument.<\/p>\n
There was no request for money at first.<\/p>\n
For a few minutes, I almost felt as though I could return to the way things had been.<\/p>\n
Then Spencer asked whether I had worked out the financial situation.<\/p>\n
I felt my shoulders tighten.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to react that way.<\/p>\n
I didn't want every question about money to make me remember the conversation outside his room.<\/p>\n
But the memory was still there.<\/p>\n
I could hear his voice as clearly as if I were standing in the corridor again.<\/p>\n
I had to take a breath before answering.<\/p>\n
"I'm still working through it," I said.<\/p>\n
"I thought you might have figured something out by now."<\/p>\n
"I've made progress."<\/p>\n
"Can you tell me what that means?"<\/p>\n
I looked at the papers on the table.<\/p>\n
"It means I understand my debts better than I did before. I'm working out how to handle them."<\/p>\n
He didn't respond immediately.<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
Then he said, "I just need to know that things are going to be okay."<\/p>\n
I understood the words.<\/p>\n
I understood the worry behind them, or at least the possibility of worry.<\/p>\n
I wanted to reassure him.<\/p>\n
I wanted to say that everything would be fine.<\/p>\n
Those words had always come easily to me.<\/p>\n
But I had learned that a promise could be comforting without being honest.<\/p>\n
I couldn't guarantee that everything would be okay.<\/p>\n
I couldn't promise that there would never be another expense.<\/p>\n
I couldn't promise that the money would solve every problem.<\/p>\n
So I told him what I could truthfully say.<\/p>\n
"I'm working on making things more secure."<\/p>\n
He was quiet for a moment.<\/p>\n
Then he said, "All right."<\/p>\n
We spoke a little longer before ending the call.<\/p>\n
I put the telephone down and looked at the papers.<\/p>\n
I had not told him about the lottery.<\/p>\n
I had not explained why I was suddenly less willing to promise immediate help.<\/p>\n
But I had been honest about what I was doing.<\/p>\n
That was something.<\/p>\n
I went through the bills again and organized them by due date.<\/p>\n
The task took longer than I expected.<\/p>\n
I had to check a few amounts and find the notes I had made about the loans.<\/p>\n
At one point, I found an old envelope containing a receipt for the sewing machine.<\/p>\n
I stared at it.<\/p>\n
I remembered carrying the machine into the shop.<\/p>\n
I remembered the weight of it.<\/p>\n
I remembered the man's question about whether I was sure.<\/p>\n
I had been sure at the time.<\/p>\n
I had believed I was doing the only thing a mother could do.<\/p>\n
I still didn't regret trying to help Spencer.<\/p>\n
But I regretted how little attention I had paid to the cost of helping.<\/p>\n
I had treated my own losses as insignificant because they were mine.<\/p>\n
That was the part I needed to change.<\/p>\n
I folded the receipt and placed it back in the envelope.<\/p>\n
Then I set it aside.<\/p>\n
I didn't want to keep using the memory to make myself feel guilty.<\/p>\n
I had made the decision with the information and beliefs I had at the time.<\/p>\n
Now I had more information.<\/p>\n
I needed to act accordingly.<\/p>\n
That afternoon, I went for a short walk.<\/p>\n
I hadn't done that in weeks.<\/p>\n
Usually, I stayed close to the house because I wanted to be available if Spencer called.<\/p>\n
I carried my telephone in my pocket, but I didn't keep checking it.<\/p>\n
The air was warm.<\/p>\n
A car passed slowly along the street.<\/p>\n
I walked past the houses and noticed small things I had ignored for months.<\/p>\n
A flowerpot near a doorway.<\/p>\n
A gate that needed painting.<\/p>\n
A child's ball resting in the grass.<\/p>\n
Nothing important.<\/p>\n
Nothing urgent.<\/p>\n
I found comfort in those ordinary details.<\/p>\n
For a little while, I was simply Abigail, walking down the street.<\/p>\n
I wasn't a mother calculating medical expenses.<\/p>\n
I wasn't a woman carrying a winning ticket.<\/p>\n
I wasn't someone trying to decide whether her own son had taken advantage of her love.<\/p>\n
I was just myself.<\/p>\n
When I returned home, I felt calmer.<\/p>\n
I made tea and sat at the kitchen table.<\/p>\n
The envelope containing the ticket was still in the drawer.<\/p>\n
I took it out and placed it beside my cup.<\/p>\n
I had begun to understand that I didn't need to make the money disappear from my thoughts in order to make a good decision.<\/p>\n
I needed to stop allowing it to answer questions it couldn't answer.<\/p>\n
It could help me pay my debts.<\/p>\n
It could give me the ability to help Spencer without destroying my own financial security.<\/p>\n
It could give me options.<\/p>\n
But it couldn't tell me whether I should trust him.<\/p>\n
That was something I would have to learn from his actions.<\/p>\n
And I couldn't learn it if I refused to acknowledge what I had heard.<\/p>\n
I folded the envelope and put it away again.<\/p>\n
Then I wrote down another question.<\/p>\n
What do I need to know before I make a promise?<\/p>\n
I read it twice.<\/p>\n
The answer wasn't complicated.<\/p>\n
I needed to know what Spencer was asking for.<\/p>\n
I needed to understand the actual expenses.<\/p>\n
I needed to know what help I could provide without putting myself back into debt.<\/p>\n
And I needed to be able to speak honestly about my concerns.<\/p>\n
I didn't have to accuse him.<\/p>\n
I didn't have to assume every answer would be false.<\/p>\n
But I had to allow myself to ask.<\/p>\n
I put the pen down.<\/p>\n
The room was quiet.<\/p>\n
For once, the silence didn't feel like an invitation to worry.<\/p>\n
It felt like time I could use.<\/p>\n
I could prepare for the conversation I knew I eventually needed to have.<\/p>\n
I could decide what I wanted to say.<\/p>\n
I could stop expecting myself to find the perfect words before I had even admitted what was wrong.<\/p>\n
I had spent so long trying to protect Spencer from fear that I had forgotten fear was something I carried, too.<\/p>\n
And I was finally beginning to understand that protecting him could not mean pretending I didn't feel it.<\/p>\n
The following morning, I found myself reaching for the telephone before I had even finished my coffee. I wanted to call Spencer. That had become a habit I couldn't easily … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40954","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\/40954","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=40954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40978,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40954\/revisions\/40978"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}