My daughter only calls me when she needs money

I was sitting at the kitchen table with a stack of bills when my phone buzzed. Irina. I knew before I even picked up. It had been three months since her last call, and that one ended with me wiring her four hundred dollars for a car repair that turned out to be new tires she didn’t want to tell me about.

“Hi, sweetheart,” I said.

“Mom, I’m in a bind.”

I leaned back in the chair. The chair creaked. I’d had that chair since before she was born. The cushion was flat and the wood was scratched up from years of homework and cereal bowls and me sitting there worrying about money.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“It’s my rent. I’m short six hundred. I wouldn’t ask, but they’re going to charge a late fee and I already paid my car insurance and I just need to get through this month.”

I looked at the bills on the table. Electric, water, the credit card I’d been paying down for two years. I had maybe nine hundred dollars in checking until Friday.

“I don’t have it,” I said.

Silence.

“What do you mean you don’t have it?”

“I mean I don’t have six hundred dollars right now.”

“Mom, I’m not asking for a loan. I’ll pay you back.”

She’d said that before. Twice. I never saw a dime.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really can’t.”

She made a sound, like a short breath through her nose. “Fine. I’ll figure it out.”

Then she hung up.

I sat there for a while. The kitchen was quiet except for the refrigerator humming. I thought about calling her back. I thought about the time she was eight and had a fever and I stayed up all night wiping her forehead with a cold washcloth. I thought about how she used to crawl into my bed during thunderstorms. I thought about how she never asked how I was doing anymore.

The next few weeks were hard. I picked up extra shifts at the clinic where I work as a medical receptionist. I skipped my usual Saturday coffee with my friend Denise because I didn’t want to spend the four dollars. I ate a lot of eggs and toast. I didn’t hear from Irina.

Then one night, around nine, my phone rang. I was in bed, reading. I almost didn’t answer.

“Mom?”

Her voice was different. Softer. I sat up.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing. I mean, I don’t know. I just wanted to talk.”

I waited.

“I’ve been feeling really alone,” she said. “Like, I go to work and I come home and I don’t have anyone to talk to. And I know I’ve been bad about calling. I know I only call when I need something. I’m sorry.”

I didn’t say anything. I was afraid if I spoke, she’d stop.

“I don’t need money,” she said. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

I closed my eyes. The room was dark except for the little light from my phone.

“I’m here,” I said.

We talked for almost an hour. She told me about her job, her coworkers, a guy she’d gone out with twice who turned out to be a dud. I told her about the garden I was trying to start, how the tomatoes weren’t doing well because of the heat. She laughed at something I said about the neighbor’s dog. It felt like old times, before she moved away, before everything got so complicated.

When we hung up, I lay there for a long time. I wasn’t sure if this was a real change or just a moment. But it was something.

A few days later, she called again. Just to say hi. Then she called the next week. She didn’t ask for anything. She asked how my day was. She remembered I had a dentist appointment and asked how it went.

It’s been a few months now. She calls every Sunday. Sometimes we talk for twenty minutes. Sometimes longer. She came home for a weekend last month. We sat on the porch and drank iced tea and she told me she was thinking about going back to school. I didn’t offer to pay for it. She didn’t ask.

I still worry about money. I still have that stack of bills on the table. But when my phone buzzes now, I don’t feel that little knot in my stomach. I just answer.