Whitaker Foodservice Supply lost eleven of its fourteen largest contracts within six weeks. The board voted to liquidate rather than restructure. Three hundred and eighty of the four hundred and twelve jobs were gone by the following spring. I read every layoff notice. I made myself read every one.
My mother has not spoken to me since the arraignment.
She told a cousin at Thanksgiving — not me, a cousin, so it would find its way back to me exactly the way she intended — that I had destroyed this family for the sake of being right. She did not ask about Lucy’s heart. She did not ask what it had been like to watch her granddaughter’s eyes roll back at a birthday party. She asked why I couldn’t have handled it the way our family always handled things.
Quietly.
I called her once, the week the layoff notices went out, and got four rings and a voicemail I know she heard land. I left a message anyway. Told her the number of jobs lost, told her I hadn’t chosen it lightly, told her Lucy still asked sometimes if Grandma was coming to visit. She never called back. I stopped expecting her to somewhere around the second week, and I’ve made my peace with the version of my mother who chose a forged signature and a poisoned birthday cup over asking her granddaughter one honest question.
