Chapter 3 - "Don't Ever Ask Me for Anything Again"
Two years went by. When my mother and I finally sat down together again, she picked the place — Harrow & Sons, the piano gallery on Delancey Street.
She used to take me there on Saturdays when I was a boy. The acoustics, she'd say, were "clean enough that you can hear every mistake you make." She called it her favorite spot to "think about legacy," like the right instrument could buy a person greatness.
The showroom smelled like varnish and my childhood. The pianos stood in rows, polished like show horses, each one gleaming more than the last.
"So, Nathan." She trailed a finger along the closed lid of a black grand. "Is this conversation going somewhere, or are we wasting an afternoon?"
I didn't stall. "I asked Claire to marry me."
Her hand stopped in midair. Then it lowered slowly to her side.
"I see."
"She said yes."
She straightened her blazer — salmon-colored that day — smoothing wrinkles that weren't there. She wouldn't look at me.
"You'd really cut me off over this," I said.
"I'm not cutting you off. You are. The second you put a ring on a woman with a beat-up car and somebody else's child—"
"She's a nurse, Mom. She works harder than anyone you know."
"She's a mess with a kid attached, and you want to play house with her." She finally turned and faced me. "I didn't raise you to rescue people, Nathan. I raised you to matter."
"Maybe I'd rather be kind than matter."
"Then you'll be neither." Her voice didn't shake at all. "So let me be perfectly clear about one thing. If you marry that woman, don't ever ask me for anything again. Not money, not help, not a phone call. You're choosing that life. Live in it."
May you like
I waited. For a breath, a crack in her voice, one flicker of doubt. Nothing came. She didn't argue and she didn't blink.
She just let go of me. So I turned and walked out, and she let me do that too.
