My Daughter is Shouting at Me

by Veronica Montes

Her tears and her spit and all her complicated feelings fly into the air.

She says many things including don’t make it about you, Mom, don’t. I nod and stop talking. I sneak a look at my son, who just flew in from New York. He’s scrolling through his texts.

It’s a little bit about me, I want to say. Didn’t I know him just as he was becoming a man; didn’t I marry him? We raised each other. And both of you. I busy myself folding a piece of tissue in half, then quarters, then eighths.

And, yes, he has been with another woman for a dozen years now, a woman named Jenny who has flaxen hair and an easy smile. But that doesn’t mean I should go shopping for a blouse while he dies on the other side of this wall. Nor is this the time for a manicure, which is something my friends suggested yesterday. My friends are not the best.

My daughter is almost done shouting. She says Jenny doesn’t want you here, Mom. You’re making it so difficult for her, it’s like you’re committing emotional torture, and it’s really, really gross. My daughter says this last part as she slumps in my arms. I push her hair out of her eyes. Jenny can come shout at me, too, then, I say. I say it quietly, so only she can hear. We’ll talk about what’s fair, we’ll talk about who gets to sit here and why. I know how Jenny feels, I say. He left me, too.

Veronica Montes is the author of the chapbooks The Conquered Sits at the Bus Stop, Waiting (Black Lawrence Press) and I’m Not Lost (Ethel), as well as the full-length collection Benedicta Takes Wing & Other Stories (Philippine American Literary House). Her stories have been published in Wigleaf, SmokeLong Quarterly, jmww, CHEAP POP and elsewhere.