They Laughed At Me In Court Until The Judge Learned Who I Really Was

My mother gave a practiced little laugh. “Mother, she has everything.”

“You give her things,” Eleanor said. “That is not the same.”

Then she looked directly at me. “Pack a bag. You’re coming to Larks Falls.”

I looked at my parents and waited for the protest, waited for some version of no that would feel like love even if it arrived as inconvenience. I watched them run the calculation instead. No school pickups. No scheduling conflicts. No disruption to the launches and dinners and curated weekends.

“It might be good for her,” my mother said slowly, “to experience something simpler. For a semester.”