“What?” she answered. She already sounded deeply annoyed, speaking to me with the hurried impatience of someone whose very important schedule I had just recklessly interrupted. I assumed I was interrupting her process of breathing.
“Did you tell Mom not to let us come?” I asked flatly. “Because of Ivy?”
A beat of silence. Then, a long, exaggerated sigh hissed through the earpiece. It was a masterclass sigh, specifically designed to make you feel completely embarrassing simply for speaking out loud.
“Sarah,” Allison said, dragging my name out. “I have people coming.”
“People,” I echoed hollowly.
“Justin has clients coming over,” she added quickly, pitching her voice up as if that particular detail made her actions deeply noble. She made it sound like hosting Thanksgiving dinner for a bunch of commercially important corporate men was equivalent to charity work.
My stomach went completely cold. “So, you didn’t want any uncomfortable questions.”
There was dead silence on her end. It lasted just long enough to count as a definitive answer. When Allison finally spoke, her voice had sharpened into a blade.
“I don’t want a scene.”
“My child simply exists,” I said, my voice trembling ever so slightly. “That is the scene?”
“You’re doing it right now!” Allison snapped defensively. “This is exactly why nobody can deal with you. You make absolutely everything so dramatic.”
I didn’t argue with her. I didn’t try to explain my position or defend my daughter. I certainly didn’t attempt to teach basic empathy to a woman who treated the concept like it was an annoying, optional elective.
“Okay,” I said. My own voice sounded so eerily calm that I honestly didn’t even recognize myself. “Got it.”
And I ended the call right then and there, cutting the connection before she could fire back a single reply.
I remained there on the bleak shoulder of the freeway for a handful of heavy seconds, letting the freezing wind whip against my coat. I just needed to remember how to breathe. The steady, bright flash of my hazard lights painted the steel guardrail in rhythmic bursts of amber. Finally, I wrenched the heavy car door open and slid back into the driver’s seat, sealing us inside the quiet cabin once again.
Instantly, Ivy’s wide eyes darted to my face. She was scanning my expression for any microscopic clue, performing that heartbreakingly desperate search kids do when they lack the vocabulary to process an impending disaster. I forcefully wrestled my features into a mask of total serenity—the exact brand of chilling calm mothers instinctively develop for hostage situations.
“Hey, sweetie,” I murmured softly over the low rumble of the engine.
Ivy didn’t miss a single beat. “They don’t want me.”
My throat clamped shut entirely. A sudden, violent urge washed over me to just bury my face in the steering wheel and scream until my lungs gave out. But my little girl was watching my every move, and I only had one job right now: protect her.
“No, baby, that’s not—” I started, the automatic denial slipping out before I could catch it.
“Don’t lie to me,” Ivy interrupted, her tiny voice wobbling uncontrollably. “I heard it on the radio thing. Grandma said I’m embarrassing.”
I slumped back against the headrest, my gaze locked on the endless gray stretch of the interstate ahead. The dashboard indicator ticked relentlessly, the hazard lights quietly throwing out a desperate SOS to cars that just kept speeding by.
“I am so sorry,” I breathed, the words scraping out raw and jagged from my chest.
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