30 Day Writing Challenge Day 4: I Miss(ed) You

The Prompt: Respond to your mother sending you a message that says "I miss you." 

I Miss(ed) You by Tamisha A. Tyler

"I think I figured you out now." 
There were equal parts joy and relief in her voice as she says this. I imagine she is sitting at her kitchen table in Long Beach, her favorite place to talk on the phone. I am standing in my kitchen in Pasadena, leaning against the sink counter, quiet. It has been about a week since our argument during my sister's birthday weekend. I remember the yelling. Her tears. My anger. I could still feel it now. 
"I didn't know that I missed you all that time." 
"It's fine mom. I get it. You were a single mom of six kids and you had a lot on your plate and..."
"No, do not make excuses for me. It was wrong, and I am sorry." 
But I was right. And I did understand. Anyone would. A young single mother with six children, including infant twins, is bound to forget something now and again. But it was her forgetfulness that tricked me into questioning my significance. My existance.  
I remember those days like they were yesterday. I was always excited to see her. To talk about my day. But mostly to just stare at her. To watch her as she smoked her cigarette and made her coffee; her daily after work routine. Stared so long till she'd reply "Girl what are you looking at?" and I'd get scared and scurry back into the room that my 5 siblings and I shared. It wasn't that I was scared of her (don't get me wrong, everybody was), I just never knew how to answer the question. 
My mother worked at a convalescent home as a cook at the time. Some days she would bring us all ice cream that she received from her job. Those were the best days. Until she forgot. 
"Girl, you are so quiet I forgot you were here. Go share with your brother." 
Those were the days that tricked me into questioning. 
Those were the days that fueled the anger that started the argument in the first place. 
I could still feel it now. 
But something happened in that moment as I leaned on my kitchen counter listening to my mother apologize for those days. 
We made an agreement to talk to each other on the phone once a week. All she wanted was to hear from me. To know how I was doing. 
"I miss you" she says. 
She wants more than just hearing about my day. She wants me; her daughter, the quiet one who buried herself in books and ran off to college never looking back. The one who never calls home. The one she couldn't be prouder of. The one who frustrates her to no end. 
She misses me. 
She knows that more than ever, because she realized that she missed me. 
"I've figured you out now," she says, with equal parts relief and sadness. 
We talk a while, laugh a bit, catch up on things and promise to make a habit of calling. I try really hard to remember to call. Our conversations are rich. I didn't realize how much I missed her too. 
But she still owes me ice cream.