He picked up another piece. Turned it in his fingers.
“Are we going to see her?” he asked.
“Not for a while.”
“Because of what she said.”
“Yes.”
He nodded slowly, then fit the piece into place. Saturn slid into its orbit on the floor between us.
“Okay,” he said.
That evening I did what Jess and I had decided.
I removed my mother from the family group chat — the one where we’d shared Oliver’s first day of school, his gap-toothed smile at six, his first chapter book, eight years of ordinary days. I adjusted the shared photo album we kept for grandparents. Then I texted her once, plainly:
Until you apologize to Oliver directly, we won’t be including you in family updates. This isn’t punishment. It’s what protecting him looks like right now.
She responded four hours later. One sentence.
I can’t believe you’re doing this over a dinner conversation.
I didn’t reply.
Jess was standing at the kitchen window when I set my phone down. The tea she’d made was leaving a ring on the windowsill.
“Okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think so.”
“She’ll try to go around you,” Jess said. “Your dad. Garrett. Eventually she’ll try me.”
“I know.”
She turned from the window. “I’ll be ready.”
She was.
Three days later, my mother called Jess directly. Jess answered, listened for about forty seconds, and then said with remarkable calm: “Diane, this conversation needs to happen with Tom. I’m going to hang up now.” And she did.
She mentioned it to me that night like it was nothing. Like she’d dealt with a wrong number.
“How do you do that?” I asked.