Auden reconnects with her mother

Auden reconnects with her mother in an exchange that turns a long-standing distance into something they can finally discuss. A vulnerable message prompts Auden to call; later, an unexpected visit brings the two together in person. Neither conversation resolves the past, but both expose what each has been afraid to say and make room for a more mutual relationship.

The message that prompts a call

Before calling, Auden has been deleting a succession of messages without feeling much. One from Auden's mother stops her: the message says Auden is clearly avoiding her, then admits that she seems especially good at alienating the few people she wants to talk to. Its reference to Auden's summer of transformation turns the change in Auden into the subject between them, even before either is ready to discuss it directly.

The message is two days old. Auden guesses that when it arrived she was probably alone, perhaps in the office at Clementine’s or in her room. She imagines Auden's mother sitting at her kitchen table while Hollis is away working at a bank, and contrasts that picture with the version of Auden her mother might imagine: riding in a car with boys in a pink bikini. The contrast makes clear how little either woman can know about the other's life from a distance. Auden reflects that people can disown what they cannot recognize, and that self-control is not the same as understanding or closeness.

While laughter rises from downstairs, Auden presses the number-one speed-dial button and waits. The call begins simply, with Auden identifying herself as her mother's daughter. That small opening matters: instead of continuing to erase messages or remain alone with her thoughts, Auden chooses to make contact.

Asking about the divorce

Auden asks whether her parents separated immediately or tried for a long time to work things out. The question catches Auden's mother off guard; the silence before her answer shows that this is not what she expected the call to be about. She says they tried very hard to stay together and that the divorce was not a decision made lightly. Auden cannot explain exactly what she wants to know, and looks down at her book and lined pad before apologizing and trying to withdraw the question.

The answer does not make Auden's lingering hurt disappear. Instead, the conversation reaches it indirectly. Auden begins to cry, then looks out at the ocean, whose steadiness seems to coexist with constant change. She says she wishes she had done some things differently. Auden's mother understands the implication without being given a full explanation and answers, “Don’t we all.” The exchange leaves the regret open rather than resolving it with a neat account of the past.

Auden recognizes that her conversations with her mother have not had the easy clarity she imagines between other mothers and daughters. Their contact is stilted and vague, but it is also the closest they have come in a long time. Auden describes the imperfect reach between them as a hand that misses its intended hold and lands on a shoulder instead; the important thing is that they still hang on. The image captures the call's modest achievement: imperfect understanding can still be a form of contact.

An unexpected visit

Later, after Auden has been caring for Isby outside on the deck, Auden's mother arrives at the house. Auden first notices a practical detail: Heidi's phone is beside the saltshaker on the kitchen table, and Heidi has missed two calls before doubling back for it. Auden opens the door with the phone in hand, expecting Heidi, but finds her own mother instead. Her mother asks whether she can come in. Isby squawks, and Auden says yes, then steps back to make space for the visit.

The domestic setting makes this meeting different from the late-night call. There is no prepared question to hide behind. Auden's mother looks at Isby and Auden and, when asked how Auden seems different, says that the word that comes to mind is younger, although she cannot explain why. Auden does not answer aloud; she takes one of Isby's fingers and squeezes it. The gesture places the conversation in the presence of the baby and the life Auden has come to know during the summer.

Naming the distance

Auden's mother says she thought she was losing Auden when Auden came to stay with her father and Heidi, made friends, and argued with her mother about the dorms. She had become comfortable thinking that she and Auden were on the same page; the sudden realization that they were not felt strange and almost lonely. She describes Auden's new life as a world of traditions and language she did not understand, one that seemed to have no place for her.

That admission changes the shape of the earlier distance. Auden's mother is not simply objecting to Auden's independence: she is describing the fear of becoming a stranger to her daughter. Auden answers that disagreement does not prevent closeness. Her mother agrees, while still acknowledging how jarring it was to see Auden changing so quickly. Their conversation holds both truths at once: the change is real, and it need not mean that their relationship has ended.

Auden's mother also explains that she could not bear to think a choice she made in her own life had ruined Auden's. Auden replies that her life was not ruined, but that she wishes they had talked more—not only about the divorce, but about everything. The response neither dismisses the effect of the separation nor assigns all responsibility for the silence to one person. It identifies what Auden wants now: a fuller conversation between them.

An opening rather than a resolution

The exchange ends with an offer to keep learning how to talk. Auden says that the social experience her mother lacked was not Auden's either, but that she has had a crash course that summer. When her mother asks whether Auden might teach her sometime, Auden smiles and reaches to put her hand over her mother's. The warmth beneath her hand gives their new understanding a physical, tentative form. Heidi's phone buzzes in Auden's back pocket just then, interrupting the moment without undoing it.

The reconnection is significant because both women revise their assumptions. Auden's mother learns that Auden's changing life does not mean she has been rejected; Auden learns that her mother feared her own past decision had harmed her daughter. Their conversations do not supply all the words they have missed, and they do not settle every difference. They establish something smaller and more durable: the possibility of continuing to speak, disagree, and remain close.