She was right. I was smarter than this. Smarter than all this. “I’m not going to put on a brave face in public while my husband humiliates me time and time again.”

She snarled, her entire face twisting. “And you think you’re too good for that? That you’re better than me?”

Something had changed inside my mom. She was usually so much more controlled, so smooth in her condescension and disdain. I found myself feeling unexpectedly sorry for her. I didn’t pretend to understand my parents’ relationship, and after that outburst I certainly didn’t want to know more. Part of me wanted to tell her that it wasn’t my fault her life was terrible. To tell her all the ways she’d failed me as a mother and how I was trying to live a decent life in spite of the way I’d been raised.

I wanted to tell her that none of this was normal. That this was not how parents treated their children. I’d seen my kids at school with their parents. Watched my friends with their families. Blind obedience didn’t equate to love.

But I knew it wouldn’t do me any good. She wouldn’t hear anything I had to say unless it was what she wanted to hear.

“It’s not about being better than you. It’s about making the choices that are right for my life. And one of those will include marrying a man I love, that I respect and I trust. If you want to be a part of my life, if you can support my decisions, then we can talk. Otherwise, I think we’re done here.” This conversation was definitely over.

I stood up.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded. “I haven’t dismissed you.”

“Despite what you seem to think, I’m not your servant.”

She stood up, too, anger racking her entire frame. “Do you think you can just walk out on me? On me?”

I nodded and the level of quiet, self-assured calm I was feeling seemed to only infuriate her more. “The next time you call or send someone to fetch me, I’m not going to come.”

“Oh, yes you will!”

“What are you going to do?” I asked her, genuinely curious. “Disown me again? That’s the problem when you go nuclear. You can only play that card once. You have nothing else to hold over my head.”

I went out into the hallway and she followed me to the door, huffing and puffing with frustration. “You are going to regret this! I promise you, you will regret it!”

That did make me stop and look over my shoulder at her. “No, Mom. I don’t think I will.”

As I walked toward the kitchen for what I assumed was the very last time, I thought that I probably should have felt sad.

Instead I felt like a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

When I got home, Tyler was in the living room with Pigeon. “How did it go?” he asked, the concern in his voice making my heart feel wonky.

“Fine. I mean, I guess not really,” I said as I hung up my coat. “I told my mother I was done with Brad and wasn’t going to marry him and she went volcanic.”

“That bad?”

“There will be enough magma to bury a city.” I went into the kitchen and got myself a glass of water. “I can’t be who they want and so they don’t want anything to do with me.” The words stung a little, but not as much as I’d once thought they would.

“Is there a chance you just accept them for who they are and move on from there?” I couldn’t tell if Tyler was just trying to be helpful, or if subconsciously he was trying to defend his own choices when it came to his mother.

“I do accept them. I know them and understand them. Probably better than they realize. But this is not up to me. I don’t think they’ll change, no matter how much I want them to. They’ve made it clear that I’m not in charge of this relationship. They are. They make the decisions. And the only way I’ll be their daughter is if I do what they want when they want it. I’m not going to live my life that way anymore.”

“I respect that,” he said. “I know how hard that must be to realize.”

“In some ways it is, but in other ways it’s not. It makes me feel . . . free. Like the whole world has opened up to me in a way that it never was before.”

I put my glass in the sink and walked into the living room. I considered sitting down next to him, but I still felt a little edgy around him. “What have you been up to?”

“I was actually just going over my finances because I was hoping that I might be able to go down to Guatemala this year. I’ve done it in the past for this charity I work with. They build houses down there.”

Nodding, I said, “I know. I mean, I saw it on your Insta.” Then I realized how that would sound. Like I was cyberstalking him. I rushed to try and explain. “Frederica showed me your picture on Instagram when she was telling me about your apartment and then . . .” Then my best friends had gone through all his posts and shown them to me and that was creepy and I needed to shut up. “That sounds like it would be a nice trip. Maybe you could take Pigeon.”

My eyes went wide. Oh crap, I had just done it again. Referenced his Photoshopped pictures of him and Pigeon on Instagram, which I had also ogled.

He didn’t seem to notice. “I’d love to take her all over the world.” His eyes flicked up to mine and the intensity that I saw there made me feel like my heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest. “Traveling is always better when it’s with someone you care about. Maybe someday.”

I wrapped my arms around my chest. He wasn’t talking about me and I needed to stop hoping that he was. “When are you going?” I asked, fighting to get the words out.

His face fell at my question, the blue flame in his eyes dying out. “I can’t. My mom sent me an email today saying she wants to replace her car and have this elective procedure done and . . .”

His voice trailed off but I knew what he was saying. He was going to have to put aside his wants again so that his spoiled mother could have everything she wanted. How he couldn’t even have the job he really wanted because he had to earn enough money for her wish list. Having the career I wanted had been so important to me that it really upset me to think that Tyler was being trapped in the same way.

I knew I should stay quiet. This was none of my business. Even if I was telling him everything about my crazy life, it didn’t mean that he wanted to do the same. Or that he was interested in my advice. His situation wasn’t exactly like mine, and I should probably remember that.

But I couldn’t help myself. I saw a long, lonely road in front of him, one that I’d been headed down but had veered off. “We’re friends, right?”

“Yeah. Of course.” He said it like I’d surprised him. As if it were a ridiculous thing to ask.

“I don’t want to be rude to you, and you’ve been a good friend to me, but I think because I’m on this truth-telling bender at the moment I want you to know that it would be okay for you to tell your mom you’re not going to bankroll her life any longer. It’s not a bad thing for an able-bodied adult woman to support herself.” I thought maybe I should stop there, but I’d already let the horses out of the barn, so I kept going. “You don’t have to cut her off completely. You could put her on a budget. You’re good at making those. And if she doesn’t like it . . . .well, I guess she could find a job. Or get married again. You should have the job you want and not care about whether it’s enough to support her. Or anyone else.”