Linds is not interested in a lesson on bi erasure. “Tell me about your fella! He looks expensive in these Instagram photos. You know, now that Ted and I are over, I could use a little money to get my own place, and—”

Of course. She didn’t call to congratulate me on my engagement. She called me because she saw my fiancé’s Gucci loafers in a photo and figured she could get more than a few hundred bucks out of me. “Look, Mom, I gotta go—”

“Don’t you dare hang up on me. When is the wedding?”

“There isn’t really a wedding. It’s just going to be me and Andrew at the courthouse.”

“And me, because I’m your mother.”

Only biologically. “You’d have to fly into Portland, and I know you hate traveling anywhere moist.”

“I will suffer frizzy hair to see my baby girl walk down the aisle.”

I grit my teeth and try not to think about last Christmas, when she left me alone for the holidays. For this, though, she’ll get on a plane.

“Send me the details for the wedding,” my mother demands. All she ever does is demand.

“Okay,” I agree, because that’s all I ever do, too. “Goodbye, Linds.”

“Wait! About the money you sent me…”

I Venmoed her two hundred dollars last week. My checking account is currently down to $13.23. “What about the money?”

“Well, see, the battery died on the Corolla, and since I don’t have a running car, I haven’t been able to get to work, so I’m going to need another five hundred to get it fixed.”

“I don’t have five hundred dollars right now.”

A pause. “But that new beau of yours seems like he’s got money….”

“I can’t ask Andrew for money.”

She sniffles, inducing the fake tears that served as the insincere soundtrack to my childhood. “Are you just going to let me get fired? I have no car, Elena!”

I feel that twinge of guilt, that obligation to the only family member I have. I wish I had a mom like Katherine, so desperate to spend time with me she plans it in an Excel spreadsheet. I wish I had a sibling who called me stupid nicknames. I wish I had a grandma who called me sugar and only cared about my happiness. But I don’t.

I have a dad I haven’t spoken to in three years, and I have Linds. And sure, Linds only calls when she wants something, but at least sometimes she calls.

“I’m working… a new job, sort of,” I tell her. “I’ll have some money coming in soon, and I’ll pay for the new battery then.”

The fake tears cease. “Good. Glad to hear it. Venmo me when you can. Love ya.”