I love you. But your shift is over.
Not from loving you. Never from that. But from the job you didn’t ask for and I didn’t know I gave you: the job of being my reason. My reason to wake up early. My reason to save money I don’t spend. My reason to avoid traveling, to stay in this house with the leaky roof, to postpone my own dreams of painting in a seaside village. querido hijo estas despedido
“You have been a good son for twenty-six years. You have called on Sundays, remembered my birthday, and even cried at your father’s grave. But this letter is not about the past. It is about the position you currently hold in my life: the role of ‘my child, my project, my unfinished business.’ I love you
Mamá (formerly ‘Mom, Inc.’)” Mateo read the letter three times. Then he laughed—a wet, startled sound. Then he cried, because he realized he had been treating his mother like a safety net, not a person. He picked up the phone, not to call, but to book her a flight to that seaside village. He wrote on the back of her letter: “Counter-offer: I quit being your worry. You quit being my martyr. Deal?” Never from that
You are an adult. You have a career, a girlfriend who rolls her eyes when I call too often, and a life that runs just fine without my daily prayers for your socks to match. And yet, I have been acting as your general manager—worried about your cholesterol, your heating bill, the fact that you haven’t changed your car’s oil in fourteen months.
Querido hijo, estás despedido.
