“Abigail…” Mom sounds choked up. “I’m so sorry this has been going on. And that you felt alone. And I’m sorry for—for everything. For the secrets. They were never supposed to hurt you. We just wanted to protect you. I never wanted you to doubt yourself.”

Abigail turns her full gaze on Mom for the first time.

“Are you kidding? I grew up on self-doubt. You always acted like I was dysfunctional.”

“That’s not true,” Mom says.

“Maybe I was dysfunctional,” Abigail says. “You know? This whole thing with Sam, it’s been making me think…Nowadays I bet I’d have gotten tested for ADHD or something—I never really could control my impulses, my emotions. I was so restless all the time. But I wasn’t trying to be the bad kid, you know? Not at first, anyway.”

“I never said you were—“

“You didn’t have to say it,” Abigail says quietly. “After a while, it began to seem like being bad was the one thing I was good at.”

“Abigail…” Mom says, but trails off, looking lost.

“You thought I was so problematic,” Abigail says. “Everything I did was wrong. I think I was afraid of myself, Mom, you know that? I didn’t trust whatever was inside me.”
   “I…” Mom looks down and I wonder if she’s thinking what I’m thinking: that maybe she didn’t trust what was inside Abigail either. That she loved her, but she didn’t trust her. And that children need both.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

Abigail says nothing.

“We never wanted you to leave, you know,” Mom says. “Never. You left us, Abigail. You took off without a word, and never came home. I was afraid it would break your father’s heart.”

Abigail’s face changes.

“Don’t do that!” she erupts. “Don’t ‘your-father’ me! You were always doing that—trying to guilt me by invoking Dad. Trying to make me feel like I wasn’t a good enough daughter to him.”

Mom looks stricken.

“Oh no. You were good enough for him, Abigail, you were always good enough. He wouldn’t have changed one hair on your head.”

Abigail’s face crumples, and I see how furiously determined she is not to cry.

“Abigail…” Mom hesitates. “I can apologize to you for the rest of my life, but I can’t apologize for being your mother. You can be anyone else’s daughter that you want to be,” she says, “but you will never not be mine. You’re written into my skin. You have been since the day I first held you.”

Abigail stares at her for a few moments.

“I need to go to bed,” she says finally, and turns on her heel. In the background, the tinny Christmas music plays on.

*