I find myself standing before her bedroom door. I would normally never do this, never even consider it. I’m not someone who gossips or takes interest in celebrity affairs. I don’t care who’s sleeping with who. But doesn’t she owe me some explanation? Maybe it waits behind this door, tucked away with her personal things. I place my hand on the knob but change my mind. I don’t like that I am curious about her. It feels needy. She wasn’t curious about me, not for the last ten years. Why should I feel something for her she can’t return?

Her words from this morning echo back: If you could just accept that I really, truly love you, it would make everything else a lot easier.

Why should I accept that? She means it would make things easier on her. How can I simplify my life? I know! I’ll dump my seven-year-old on my mother’s doorstep. I don’t really believe it went down exactly like that, but my memory grows thin there, like cheesecloth. Details have simply slipped through and disappeared. What I remember is standing at the window, night after night, waiting. I remember the longing, so acute it was like trying to breathe underwater, desperate and fruitless. And I remember the disappointment, like a wasp that returns again and again, stinging the chambers of my heart. I remember enough.

At the very least, I deserve to know what’s happened to Moony’s money, the account she said she was keeping for my college fund. If there’s any chance my mother is lying, I have to try and find out. And there’s a possibility Mary has money stashed away somewhere, in an underwear drawer or the heel of a boot. She hates all institutions, including banks. It would be just like her to roll her cash up and sleep on it. I know Moony would say stealing is a sin, but doesn’t my mother owe me? Especially now?

I stare at her door, deliberating, wrestling with my conscience and my hunger to know more. At last I cross the room and try the knob again. Her door swings wide before me. Her room is a mess of clothes and accessories. She has a few stacks of books, mostly on occult topics, punctuated by a couple of self-help titles: Quieting the Manic Mind: Mindfulness Techniques for Mental Health and You Can Fix Your Life.