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“Just talk to her. It’s been a while, right?”

It had been a month, maybe two, since I’d talked to my mom. “If she wants to talk to me she can call me onmyphone.”

“She says she’s been trying. Did you block her number again?”

“What?” I asked, feigning innocence. “I wouldnever.”

“Wren, just talk to her.”

I took her phone, thinking I’d just hang up, but Zoey gave me that pleading look of hers. I sighed. I’d keep it short. “Hello?”

“Wren Bird,” my mother sang. “How are you?”

I swallowed, hating that even her voice seemed to stir something in my chest and tighten my throat. “Busy.”

“Oh yeah? What’s keeping you busy these days?”

“The shelter. I’m trying to home a dog that’s been with us longterm.”

“That sounds like my girl.”

I clenched my teeth. What made her think she knew me well enough to know what sounded like me? “What about you?” I said, because after everything she was still my mom and I did wonder.

“I started this rock and crystal business online. I have this tumbler and I find rocks all over. People love shiny things. It lets me explore.”

“That sounds like you,” I said, because one of us may have changed over the last seven years, but the other one hadn’t.

She laughed. I cringed.

“Come visit, Bird.”

“Visit what?” I said, completely confused by her statement.

“Me.”

“Why?” She’d never asked me that before and it caught me off guard.

“Because it’s been too long since I’ve seen my babies.”

“I can’t. I work,” I said, my voice flat.

“It’s summer. You can take some time off.”

“No.” She’d only visited a handful of times in all these years and now she expected me to drop everything because she decided it was time.

She let out a sharp breath. “Holding on to all this anger can’t be good for you.”

“Are you seeing a therapist again?” That would be good news. I hoped it might help her sort through her life. The problem was that she would listen to everything her therapist said and apply it to everyone but herself.

“Wren Bird, just think about it, okay?”

“I already thought about it. I don’t want to.”

“What happened to my free-spirited little girl? Have you losther?”

I had never been free-spirited. That was always her. And now she wanted a reaction out of me. I wasn’t behaving how she wanted, so she was spitting out whatever came into her head. Despite the fact that my eyes felt hot with fire, I was not going to do the same. “I’m hanging up now.”

I hung up before she could respond and shoved the phone into my sister’s hand. “Don’t do that to me again.”