Logic is gay

I am sitting in a booth at the Olive Garden across from my mother, but it doesn’t look appreciate her. Her voice is still raspy and sweet, with the Long Island Jewish accent that sang me lullabies as a kid and growled at me as a teen. She smells the same, too—a combination of potting soil, patchouli-scented lotion, and zucchini bread. I’ve never been more comforted by these little, unchangeable details as I look at the stranger who calls herself Darlene.

“I guess your father told you,” Mom says.

“No,” I reply. “Dad cried before he could finish his sentence. Then he told me to ask you, which I have a feeling I don’t want to do,” I add. She’s distant and moody, often in her own world and less in mine. She’s flakey and off her game. She’s keeping secrets. I don’t recognize what they are, but they are as large as the air is heavy between us.

“We’re getting a divorce,” Mom says. A lingering silence accompanies my blank stare. Suddenly, the endless breadsticks and salad manifest into a new, endless purgatory, trapping me between my need to fall apart and the room of strangers surrounding me. I resent her for fencing in my meltdown.