Paige was very still for a moment. Then she said: “I know. I think I’ve known that for a while.”
“Then the next question,” David said, “is what we do from here.”
He said “we,” which included everyone at the table. I noticed that.
## What I Said
There was a moment, after David’s statement, where everyone at the table was waiting for me. I could feel it. Ruth and David were waiting. Andrew was waiting. Paige was waiting in the particular way she waited for things from me, with that combination I had always found hard to hold: the defiance and the need.
I put down my fork.
“I’ve been thinking about what I want to say tonight,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about it since I got Ruth’s voicemail. And I’ve changed my mind about it several times.”
I looked at Paige.
“What I’ve landed on is this: I’m your mother. I am not dead. I have not been dead. And the fact that I had to say that sentence to my son-in-law over the phone this week is something I’m going to be processing for a while.”
Paige’s eyes were bright.
“I’m angry. I want to be honest about that, because I think pretending I’m not would be dishonest in a conversation where we’re supposed to be honest. I’m angry that I missed your wedding because you told your husband’s family I didn’t exist. I’m angry that I’ve spent eighteen months not knowing the people I was going to spend the rest of my life as family with. I’m angry that Andrew grew up without a mother-in-law, which is a strange sentence but it’s true.”