I reached the table and put the envelope I'd taken from our bedroom beside Wade's bill.
He looked at it.
Then he looked at me.
"What is that?"
"Something I think we need to talk about."
My mother stood near the front door, still holding her wallet.
The taxi was waiting outside.
I could see the driver through the window, sitting behind the steering wheel.
Wade tapped his sheet of paper against his palm.
"Jenna, we don't have all morning."
"I know."
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a folded sheet of paper and several receipts I'd kept from the weeks since Sadie was born.
I hadn't gone upstairs intending to prepare a grand speech.
I had gone because I needed a few minutes away from Wade's outstretched hand and my mother's trembling fingers.
The envelope was simply what I'd found when I started looking for something that would help me think clearly.
I laid the receipts on the table.
Wade stared at them.
"What are you doing?"
"Looking at the things we're counting."
He gave a short, impatient laugh.
"I've already worked out the amount."
"Yes. I can see that."
I picked up his bill.
Eight hundred dollars for the room.
Two hundred for utilities.
One thousand dollars in total.
The figures looked no less insulting the second time I read them.
I placed the bill beside the receipts.
"Tell me how you worked this out."
He crossed his arms.
"Rent is rent. Utilities are utilities."
"That's not a calculation."
"It's a fair amount for a month."
I looked at him.
"Fair to whom?"
His jaw tightened.
Mom shifted behind me.
I turned toward her.
"Mom, please sit down."
She glanced at Wade before lowering herself onto the chair beside the hallway table.
Her wallet was still open in her hands.
I wanted her to close it.
I wanted her to understand that she didn't have to prove she was a good person by paying someone who had just insulted her.
But I knew she was worried about me.
She had spent her whole life trying to make difficult situations easier for the people she loved.
Even now, she was more concerned about what would happen to my marriage than what Wade had asked her to pay.
I turned back to him.
"While Mom was here, she cooked most of our dinners."
"That wasn't what I asked her to do."
"No. She came because I needed help."
"She chose to come."
I stared at him.
He had found a way to make her kindness sound like a decision that relieved him of any obligation to appreciate it.
"She chose to come because I was struggling to take care of our daughter."
Wade glanced toward the stairs.
"You weren't the only one adjusting to the baby."
I felt the words land.
He was trying to make this about the difficulties of becoming parents.
He was trying to turn the conversation away from the paper on the table.
I didn't let him.
"Then let's talk about what each of us has been doing."
I touched the receipts.
"These are groceries and household things I bought before Mom arrived. Some are from the weeks she was here. She bought groceries herself, too."
He looked down at the papers.
"That doesn't change the fact that she used the room."
"No, it doesn't."
I paused.
"But it doesn't erase everything she gave us, either."
Mom finally spoke.
"Jenna, you don't need to do this."
I walked over and knelt beside her chair.
"Yes, I do."
She looked at me with the same worried expression she'd worn when she first arrived.
"I don't want you two fighting over me."
I took her hand.
"You aren't the reason we're fighting."
I meant it.
She had not created this situation.
She had come when I needed her.
She had never demanded payment, special treatment, or even a thank-you.
She had done what she could and asked for nothing in return.
I squeezed her fingers.
"Please put your wallet away."
She hesitated.
Then, slowly, she closed it.
The small click of the clasp sounded louder than it should have.
I stood and faced Wade again.
He looked annoyed.
"Are you finished?"
"No."
I picked up his bill and held it out toward him.
"I'm not paying this. Mom isn't paying this. And I don't agree that she owes us anything."
His face changed.
"You don't get to decide that on your own."
I looked at him for a moment.
It was a strange thing to hear from my husband while my mother sat behind me, trying not to become the cause of an argument.
"I think I get to decide whether I'm willing to stand here and watch you take money from her."
"I'm not taking anything. I'm asking her to contribute."
"After she spent a month helping us care for Sadie?"
"She stayed in our house."
I could feel my hands beginning to shake.
I placed them flat against the table.
"She stayed in the room that was empty before she arrived. She used the water and electricity that we were already paying for. And while she was here, she helped me do things I couldn't manage alone."
I took a breath.
"You keep talking about what she cost us. You haven't said one word about what she did for us."
Wade opened his mouth.
Then he closed it.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
I could hear the faint sound of the taxi engine outside.
Mom's suitcase stood beside the door.
The casserole she'd made was still in the refrigerator.
Those ordinary things made the scene feel even more unreal.
My mother had cooked for us that morning.
She had folded baby clothes.
She had prepared to leave quietly, hoping the help she'd given me would make the transition back to caring for Sadie easier.
And my husband had chosen that moment to present her with a bill.
I looked at the paper again.
I didn't want to negotiate the amount.
I didn't want to offer five hundred dollars instead of one thousand.
I didn't want to turn my mother's visit into a transaction.
I wanted the bill to disappear because the idea behind it was wrong.
Wade took the paper from my hand.
"You're making this into something it isn't."
I shook my head.
"No. I'm finally calling it what it is."
He looked toward Mom.
She lowered her eyes.
I could see that she wanted to leave.
Not because she thought she should pay.
Because she wanted the discomfort to end.
I walked to the door and picked up her suitcase.
"Your taxi is waiting, Mom."
She rose slowly.
I helped her put on her coat.
Then I carried the suitcase outside.
The driver got out to help, but I told him I had it.
Mom followed me to the car.
Before she got in, she turned back toward the house.
"Wade is still your husband," she said softly.
I looked at her.
"I know."
"Don't make a decision when you're upset."
I swallowed.
She was still trying to protect me.
Even after everything, she was asking me to be careful with the life I had built.
I hugged her.
"I won't."
I couldn't promise her that everything would be fine.
I couldn't promise that Wade would apologize or that I would suddenly understand how to repair what had happened.
But I could promise that I wouldn't ask her to pay him.
Mom held me tightly.
Then she climbed into the taxi.
I watched as the driver closed the door.
She waved through the window.
I waved back.
The car pulled away, carrying her home with the wallet she'd nearly emptied for us.
I stood outside until it turned the corner.
Then I went back inside.
Wade was waiting in the hallway.
The bill was still in his hand.
He looked at me as though I'd embarrassed him in front of a stranger.
"You had no right to handle it that way."
I closed the door.
"She was my mother."
"She's my guest, too."
"Then you should have treated her like one."
He looked away.
I walked past him toward the kitchen.
The casserole was waiting in the refrigerator.
I opened the door and looked at it.
For the first time that morning, I felt something other than anger.
I felt the weight of what my mother had left behind.
Not a debt.
Not a bill.
A month of care that I had not yet learned how to give back.
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: After the Taxi Disappeared, Wade Wanted to Discuss the Money, but I Could No Longer Pretend Money Was the Only Problem
I Thought I Could Handle Motherhood Alone Until One Phone Call Brought My Seventy-Three-Year-Old Mother to Our Door
Part 5 of 9
