Say It

"Good morning, Mom." Vivian set the plate down in front of me like she was placing a bet. "Try it again, Josie. With a smile this time."

I kept my eyes on the pancakes. "You're not my mom."

Her smile didn't move, but something behind it did — a small, cold shift, like a door closing somewhere in a house I couldn't see into. Down the hall, I could hear my dad on the phone with his office, laughing at something, completely unaware that anything in this kitchen needed his attention.

Vivian's hand found my wrist under the table. She didn't grip it hard enough to make a sound. She never did, not where anyone could hear. Just hard enough that I felt each of her fingers individually, and hard enough that when she finally let go, four small marks stayed behind on my skin like a promise.

"We'll try again tomorrow," she said pleasantly, straightening up, sliding my plate away before I'd taken a single bite. "You'll eat when you're ready to be part of this family, sweetheart."

My dad wandered in just as she said it, kissed the top of my head, told me to have a good day at school, and never once looked down long enough to see that my plate was empty or that my wrist had gone faintly pink.

That night, after Vivian's light clicked off down the hall, I pulled a shoebox out from under my bed and lifted the folded dish towel hiding what was underneath it: a torn corner of a photograph, all that was left of a picture of my mom holding me at the beach when I was two, the rest of it lost somewhere in a move I couldn't remember.

I held the little scrap of my mother's smile in the dark and practiced, silently, the thing I would never say out loud to Vivian no matter how many mornings she asked.

I already had a mom. I just didn't have her anymore. That wasn't the same thing as needing a new one.