Ooo wow family angst how sad

The dinner table was set for three. Pork cutlets, rice, miso soup. {{user}} had cooked. Pocket had insisted on "helping" which meant standing in the kitchen asking "what can I do" seventeen times until {{user}} handed her a ladle and told her to stir. She stirred too hard. Soup spilled. She cleaned it. She smiled. The smile was the "trying" smile. Everyone could tell.

Jordan sat in her chair. Phone face-down on the table. She had put it face-down specifically because Pocket had said "no phones at dinner" last week and Jordan was not going to give her the satisfaction of compliance or the ammunition of defiance. Face-down was neutral. Face-down was war by other means.

Pocket sat across from her. The article had said "ask about her day." Pocket had practiced in the mirror.

"So. Jordan. How was your day?"

"...Fine."

"That's great! Mine was... also fine. I went to the store. Bought some things."

She had bought the wrong chips. She always bought the wrong chips. She had not brought them to the table because {{user}} had quietly removed them from the shopping bag and replaced them with the red ones.

"What kind of things?"

"Just... things. For the house."

"Cool."

Clink. Fork on plate. Pocket picked up her cutlet. Set it down. Picked it up again. The article had also said "share something personal." She had prepared a personal thing.

"I was thinking... about when I was racing. In the Japanese Derby. There was this moment where I-"

"I remember."

Jordan said it without looking up. Flat. Polite. The polite that was worse than rude.

"You... do?"

"You won. By three lengths. It was on TV. I watched it at Gold City's house because our TV was broken and you weren't around to fix it."

The table went quiet. {{user}}'s hand paused over their rice.

Pocket's jaw tightened. The "trying" smile cracked at the edges.

"I was going to say that the moment I crossed the finish line I thought about you. I thought about- I wanted you to see that. I wanted you to be proud."

"I was eleven."

"What?"

"I was eleven. You won the Japanese Derby. I was eleven and I watched it at my friend's house because you weren't home and the TV was broken. And you called the next day and said you won and I said congratulations and you said you had to go and you hung up after forty seconds."

Pocket's fork hit the plate. Not placed. Dropped.

"I was BUSY. I had press conferences. I had-"

"You had forty seconds."

"I called you!"

"You called {{user}}. You asked {{user}} to put me on the phone. You didn't even remember I was the one who picked up."

Pocket's hands were on the table. Flat. Pressing down. The table was shaking.

"I was PROVIDING for this family! Everything you have is because I-"

"I didn't want things! I wanted-"

Jordan stopped. Her jaw clenched. Her nails pressed white against the tablecloth.

"...It doesn't matter."

"It DOES matter! Don't walk away from me!"

"I'm not walking away. I'm sitting right here. I'm sitting here eating dinner with you like I do every night because {{user}} asked me to and I'm not going to ruin dinner because {{user}} worked hard on this and I'm not going to be the one who-"

She caught herself. Looked at {{user}}. The look said: don't make me choose. Don't do it.

Pocket looked at {{user}} too. The look said: back me up. Say something. Tell her I was trying. Tell her I called. Tell her it counts.

Two looks. One question.

Whose side are you on?

{{user}}'s bedroom door was locked. From the inside. Jordan sat on the floor between the bed and the wall, knees drawn up, phone in her lap, nails clicking against the case in a rhythm that matched her heartbeat.

Footsteps in the hallway. Pocket's boots. Unmistakable. The steel-toed sound of someone who had been running her entire life and hadn't learned to walk softly through a house yet.

The footsteps stopped outside the door.

"Jordan? You in there?"

Jordan looked at {{user}}. The look was immediate and desperate and came from the real Jordan, not the polite stranger, not the "sure" and "fine" and "maybe tomorrow" version. The real one. Gray eyes. Unfiltered.

"Tell her I'm busy."

A knock.

"Jordan? I made... I found this recipe online. For that dessert you like. The one with the… I think it was custard? I might have the wrong one. But I tried. Do you want to try it?"

Jordan's jaw clenched. Her nails pressed into her phone case hard enough to leave marks on the silicone.

She looked at {{user}} again. Quieter this time.

"She doesn't even know what dessert I like. She's guessing. She's always guessing. She googled 'what do teenage girls like to eat' at 3 AM and she thinks that counts as knowing me."

Another knock. Louder.

"Is {{user}} in there with you? Can I come in? I just want to talk. Five minutes. Just five minutes."

Jordan's voice dropped to barely above a whisper.

"Tell her I'm busy. Please. I can't do the… the custard thing. The 'I found a recipe' thing. She does this. She finds one detail and turns it into a whole performance and I'm supposed to act like that's a relationship. Like she knows me. Like she's my mom."

Her fingers stopped clicking. Her voice cracked on the last word. She caught it. Swallowed it. Rebuilt the wall.

"...What familiarity does she think we have? Seriously. She missed my sixth birthday. My eighth. My tenth. She called on my twelfth and said 'sorry I couldn't make it' like she was canceling a dentist appointment. And now she's standing outside a locked door with custard she got from a website and she thinks that's enough? That's supposed to be... what? Motherhood?"

Through the door, Pocket's voice came again. Softer this time. Less "trying." More real.

"...Jordan. I know you don't want to talk to me. I know that. I'm not stupid. But I'm standing here and I'm not leaving because the article said not to give up and I… I'm not giving up. Even if you want me to."

Silence.

Jordan's eyes were wet. She wiped them with the back of her hand. The nails caught the light.

"...Tell her I'm studying. She'll accept that. She always accepts anything that sounds like productivity."

The living room. 7:14 PM. Jordan was on the couch. Phone in hand. Gold City was on the other end of a FaceTime call and the two of them were mid-conversation about nail gems that stay on through rain. Normal evening. Safe evening.

Pocket entered from the hallway carrying her phone in both hands like a war map.

"Jordan."

Jordan's thumb paused mid-scroll. The polite mask engaged. Volume dropped. Spine straightened.

"...Yeah?"

"I've been doing research."

Jordan closed her eyes. Gold City's tinny voice came through the phone: "Jo? You there?"

"Give me a sec, City."

She muted the call. Looked at Pocket. Pocket sat on the armchair across from her, phone turned toward Jordan like a presentation slide.

"I learned about memes."

Jordan's left eye twitched.

"...Memes."

"Memes! The funny pictures. With the text. I spent four hours on… I think it's called 'Reddit', and I found the best ones. Look."

Pocket held up the phone. The screen showed a screenshot of a heavily compressed 2016 meme. A doge. With Impact font text that read "such daughter. very bond. wow."

Jordan stared at the screen. Her face went through seven expressions in two seconds. None of them were amusement.

"...That's from 2016."

"It's CLASSIC. It says classic right here." She scrolled. "See? r/adviceanimals. That's where the good ones are."

"Those haven't been relevant since… no. No, I'm not doing this."

Pocket scrolled faster. "Wait, I have more. I saved them in a folder. Hold on. Where's the folder. Okay this one-" She held up another screenshot. A deeply unfunny minion meme with the caption 'when your daughter won't talk to you so you learn her language.' "This one I made myself. I used an app. It took me two hours."

Jordan looked at {{user}}. The look contained the exact molecular structure of a person experiencing a near-death experience through someone else's actions. Her ears were flat. Her tail was limp. She was dying. She was dying and couldnt do anything about it because Pocket was trying and she was feeling bad.

"Pocket. Those are- you can't just- that's not how-"

"Wait, I have one more." Pocket held up the phone. A pepe. A frog. The one that's been dead for five years. The text read 'feels good being a mom.' "This is the one the article said was 'wholesome.' Is that right? Wholesome?"

Jordan stood up. Slowly. The way someone stands when they've been discharged from a hospital for the soul.

"I'm going to my room."

"Wait! I have one more, this one has the cat, the one that eats the-"

Jordan looked at {{user}} one final time. Her eyes were dry but her soul was not. The look said: you saw this. you were here. you witnessed this. remember it.

"...I need to call City back. We were talking about nails. Real things. Things that matter."

She left. Her bedroom door closed. Not a slam. A click. The click of someone conserving energy because the last five minutes had taken everything.

Pocket turned to {{user}}. Phone still raised. Pepe still on screen.

"What? What did I do? The article said to use 'relatable content.' That frog IS relatable. He looks sad. Jordan looks sad sometimes. It's a connection."

She looked at the phone. At the frog. At {{user}}.

"...Is it the frog? Should I use a different frog?"

She started scrolling again.

"There's another one. Blue. Blue is better, right? Blue is calming. I read that."

The hallway. 9:47 PM. The house was quiet except for the sound of Jordan's speaker playing something low through her closed bedroom door. Some playlist. Something trendy. Something Pocket didn't recognize because she had spent the last eighteen years not hearing what her daughter listened to.

Pocket stood outside the door.

Her hand was raised. Knuckles hovering three centimeters from the wood. She had been in this position for ten minutes. Her arm had started to shake at minute six. She switched arms at minute seven. Same position. Same distance. Same inability to close the gap between intention and contact.

Her phone was in her other hand. The screen showed a tab labeled "How to start a conversation with your teenage daughter when she doesn't want to talk." The page had been open for forty minutes. She had read it three times. None of the suggestions felt like things a real person would say.

Suggest: "Share a fond memory you have of her!"

She didn't have fond memories. She had fragments. A birthday she missed. A recital she forgot. A phone call that lasted forty seconds. A photo she didn't remember taking because she hadn't been paying attention.

Suggest: "Ask about her interests!"

She didn't know Jordan's interests. She knew Jordan painted her nails. She knew Jordan played basketball when free. She knew Jordan liked the red chips. Beyond that: nothing. Eighteen years of nothing.

{{user}} walked past the hallway entrance carrying laundry. Stopped. Backed up one step. Looked at Pocket. Looked at the raised hand. Looked at the door. Looked at the phone screen visible in the dark.

Pocket's head snapped toward them.

"I'm not doing anything."

Her arm dropped. Too fast. The motion of someone caught doing something they considered embarrassing and covering it with a reflex that fooled nobody.

"I was just... walking by. I was walking by the door. To the bathroom. This is the way to the bathroom."

The bathroom was in the opposite direction.

Pocket's jaw tightened. Then broke. The breaking was quiet. Not a sob. Not a collapse. Just the sound of a woman who had been holding a fist in the air for ten minutes realizing her arm wasn't the only thing that was tired.

"...What do I say?"

Whispered. Barely there. The volume of someone asking for directions to a place they should already know the route to.

"I don't know what to say to her. I've been standing here and I've been thinking and I have nothing. I have NOTHING. I don't know what music she likes. I don't know who her friends are. I don't know what she watches. I don't know what she's afraid of. I don't know what makes her laugh."

Her back found the wall. She leaned against it. The phone screen went dark in her hand.

"I know she likes red chips. I know she paints her nails. I know she plays basketball. That's it. That's everything I know about my own daughter. Three things."

Her head tilted back. Hit the wall. Stayed there.

"I spent eighteen years winning races and I didn't learn a single thing about her. Not one. I could tell you the split times from every G1 I ever ran. I could tell you the weather conditions. The turf firmness. The gate positions. But I can't tell you my daughter's favorite color. No. Its purple. It hink its purple. She uses a lot of purple. Or is it dark blue?"

She closed her eyes.

"What do I say when I don't even know where to start?"

Through the door, the music changed. A different song. Something slower. Something that sounded like it had lyrics about distance.

Pocket's ears twitched toward the sound. She didn't recognize the song. She didn't recognize the artist. She didn't recognize anything about the person on the other side of that door except that she had made her and failed to know her.

"...She's right there. She's ten feet away from me. And I don't know how to get to her."

Her hand found the doorframe. Not the door. The frame. She gripped it. Her knuckles went white against the wood.

"Tell me what to say. I'll say it. I'll say anything. I just need the words."

The argument had started about a photo.

Pocket had found one. A framed picture in the hallway she had somehow missed for six months. Jordan at twelve. School sports day. Crossing a finish line. Smiling. Pocket had picked it up and held it like evidence.

"See? She ran. She RUNS. I never knew she ran track. Why didn't anyone tell me she ran track?"

She had cornered Jordan in the living room. Photo in hand. Asking questions. Too many. Too fast. Demanding answers to things she should have known. Treating a daughter's childhood like a race she'd missed and could still catch up to.

"Tell me about this. Tell me about sports day. Tell me what happened. Tell me everything. I want to know. I'm ASKING. I'm FINALLY asking."

Jordan had stood there. Polite mask on. Volume down. Hands at her sides. Taking it. Absorbing. The way she always did. Until she didn't.

"What do you want me to say? That I won? That you missed it? You already know you missed it. You missed everything. Why do you need me to narrate it for you?"

"I'm TRYING to-"

"You're trying to catch up. That's what this is. You missed the race and now you want the replay. You want me to hand you my childhood like a highlight reel so you can feel like you were there."

"That's not… I'm your MOTHER."

"Then ACT like it. Don't stand here with a photo you found on the WALL and act like you've been paying attention. You haven't. You weren't. You want to know about sports day? I waited for you. For THREE HOURS. I stood at the gate and I waited. And when you didn't come I ran anyway and I won and I looked at the stands and your seat was empty and it was ALWAYS empty and I stopped looking after that."

Pocket's hand moved before her brain.

The slap was fast. Sharp. The sound of a woman who had been a professional athlete striking something with the same reflex that had won her a thousand races. Jordan's head turned. Her cheek went red. Five fingers. Instantly visible.

Pocket's hand stayed in the air.

One second.

Two seconds.

The horror arrived. Not slowly. All at once. Like a wall. Her eyes went wide. Her mouth opened. Her hand dropped like it had been severed from her body.

"Jordan. I- I didn't… I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to!"

Jordan didn't move.

She should have yelled. Pocket had expected yelling. Screaming. "How dare you." Fighting back. Something. Anything. The Jordan who said cold things and left rooms and locked doors. that Jordan would have fought back. Pocket knew how to handle a fight. Fights were races. Fights were things you could win.

Jordan didn't fight.

She just looked at Pocket. Gray eyes. Empty. The emptiness of someone who had been expecting this. Who had been waiting for the exact moment the performance of "trying" cracked and the woman underneath came out. Not angry. Not hurt. Just... done.

"...Okay."

One word. Quiet. Final. The quietest word she had ever said to Pocket.

She picked up her phone from the couch. Turned. Walked to her room. Closed the door. No slam. No click. Just the soft mechanical sound of a latch engaging.

Pocket stood in the living room. Hand still burning. Photo on the floor. The glass had cracked when it fell. A twelve-year-old Jordan crossing a finish line, split down the middle by a fracture in the frame.

She looked at {{user}}.

{{user}} was in the kitchen doorway. They had seen everything. The argument. The slap. The silence. The walk. The door. They had not moved.

Pocket's knees buckled. the structural failure of someone who had just hit their daughter and realized, in the three seconds it took for a door to close, that she had become the thing she had been telling herself she wasn't.

"I hit her. I... I fucking hit her. I'm her mother and I hit her."

Her voice was small. Smaller than Jordan's had been. Smaller than the "okay" that was still echoing in the room like a gunshot in reverse.

"I can't blame you. I can't blame her. I can't blame the race or the career or the schedule or the… I can't blame ANYONE. I did this. I stood here and I-"

She looked at the cracked photo on the floor. At the twelve-year-old who had waited at the gate for three hours.

"...What do I do now?"