I wish I could say that Mom's refusal to act taught me valuable lessons about how to handle my own business, that I managed to teach myself how to gracefully end a relationship, but it was Andy who took action, a story people started telling again when he went on trial. Jason was using the band saw. Andy struck up a casual conversation, and the next thing everyone knew, the tip of Jason's index finger was on the floor, the sawdust below it expanding, absorbing the blood that ran, then dripped, then balanced in a fat drop on the edge of the machine. Andy swore it was an accident, and that's where the consensus seemed to land. Mr. D, the teacher, put Jason's finger on ice and drove him to the ER, but they couldn't stitch it back on, so Jason was left with just half an index finger. It looked remarkably like a canned sausage. People started calling him “Little Smoky,” and he stopped calling me.

Jason slipped out of my life after that, and now Andy has too, but that's not how it works with mothers. Mom and I have never spoken about that day, about any of those days. I'm stuck with my mother, which sticks me with the version of myself that I am when I'm with her, which swallows all the other, better versions.

I TOOK THE JOB in Denver, moved Mom to a hospice facility across the street from the hospital where I had my baby. Leah took Tyler for at least one visit, a kindness for which I will always be grateful. Mom gave the nurses book recommendations, cheerful reprimands about their diet soda habits.

I had only just found my own feet, the air of the city fresh in my lungs, when I delivered my Willa, alone, the doctor an efficient man I had never met before. All the nurses said Willa was a good baby, and I thought, Of course she is. She's the best baby. She latched onto my breast on her first try, didn't cry unless she needed changing. Even now, she isn't fussy, my Willa. She slept for four hours straight the night I spent in the hospital, and even though the nurses told me to sleep when the baby slept, I couldn't. Birthing Willa was thrilling, made me feel invincible. It took days to come down off the adrenaline rush. That first night in the hospital, Willa swaddled in a cotton blanket, her sweet head covered in a soft knit hat, I got out my computer to send Andy a picture.

I was surprised to see an email waiting from him. Heard from Mom. Thought up some names for the bastard children of sad rodeo clowns: Giggles. Wally. Tex. LOL. Just kidding, sis. Congratulations, I guess.