My mother is a grandmother now.

"My mother is a grandmother now she says to me let’s catch up so I put my book down take a deep breath say sure and she is already saying I’ve been thinking about you lately about how you are focused on the negative always you show your son anger and sadness you even (gasp) name it but where oh where is the joy and I try not to fly into space I say you mean except in the fifty nine minutes each hour we experience it together and she is already saying well I suppose he is unusually happy but last week he had a nightmare and I say yes trying to will my feet onto the floor and she says and you let him watch television and I say yes and I am digging in my toes and she is saying so you agree you should stop what you’re doing put him to sleep in my house in my bed every night because he’s better off here and I give myself one last push down and I say well I wouldn’t mind not being tired for a while and she says why don’t you tell him how happy he is especially when he is unhappy it will make his anxiety better and I feel myself becoming a black hole I hear myself saying because that would be cruel and she says this is not an attack on you but literally all my thirty years of training and experience say you’re doing it wrong and I say this is not an attack on you but I am a lifelong student of cruelty and she says you can’t mean that and I say I do and I am gone."