Page 126 of January

“She would’ve made me move home.”

“Why would that have been so bad?”

“We were too different. She wanted me to be something I wasn’t, and I wanted her to just understand.”

“Sounds familiar,” Kyle said.

Their mother stared at her for a minute, and Kyle wasn’t sure how to read her expression, so she wrapped her hands around her now-cold coffee.

“I won’t get a lawyer, but I’m not happy.”

“No one asked if you were happy,” Jolie replied. “We’re not exactly happy, either. The difference is that we want to try to be, and you can either be in the way of that or get out of it, Mom.”

“What did you do to her?” their mother asked, looking at Kyle still. “She was never like this before.”

“She made me strong,” Jolie replied for Kyle. “She’s my big sister, and she made me strong. I’m just finally ready toshow her that.”

Kyle’s eyes welled with tears that she didn’t want to shed right now, so she did her best to hold them in.

“I don’t know about rehab or therapy. I couldn’t get time off from work, anyway,” their mother excused.

“Then, we’ll talk when you figure out how to get whatever help you’re going to get,” Jolie said. “Until then, Mom, the money train has left the station, and the taking-care-of-you part of my life has to be over. You’re my mom. You’re supposed to be taking care of me until you’re super old and need us to help change your adult diapers or something. This isn’t supposed to be how it is.”

“I won’t wear adult diapers,” the woman replied.

“We all will eventually. No shame in that,” Jolie said.

Kyle chuckled a little under her breath until her mother’s gaze landed on her own again, but it didn’t seem angry or unreadable this time. It was almost sad. Had something Jolie said finally gotten through to her?

“I’ll book a flight home.”

“Good,” Jolie said.

“I’m not going to rehab.”

“Some kind of therapy?” Kyle asked.

“You’ll pay for it?”

“I want to be clear, Mom: I’m only paying for the billable therapy hours. I won’t pay for anything else. I will work it out with them that they arenotto give you any money. If you try to run some kind of refund scam where you get me to pay for more sessions than you’re receiving and try to get them to give you the extra money, it won’t work. I’ll warn them. I’ll double-check everything.”

“Sounds like a full-time job,” Jolie noted. “Don’t do that to her, Mom. Take this seriously. Just do this, please. You’ve never done anything for us. Dothis. I’ll go to the therapist’s office myself to make sure you’re there if I have to.”

“Oh, and Jolie gets to help pick out the therapist.”

“What?” their mother protested. “It’s supposed to bemytherapy that I don’t even need.”

“You’re not going to pick someone who makes it easy and gives you gold stars. You need to find someone who can help you deal with whatever you need to deal with, Mom.”

“If they want me to go in with you or Ky one day, we can talk about doing that as well so we can all start trying to heal together,” Jolie offered.

“Family therapy? I tried that once. It didn’t work.”

“No, you didn’t try. That was the problem. This time, you will, or that’ll be it, Mom. I can’t have you in my life if you’re going to keep making Kyle feel awful or if you’re going to call me one day, while I’ve got my kids in my car, and ask me to pick you up from a bar because you’re too drunk to drive home. I won’t continue this cycle.”

“I won’t, either,” Kyle added.

“You’re having kids now, too? With this Melinda?”