Turn 12 of 21

Let her in without explanation - let the mess speak for itself. Convince her you are enjoying this and don't need change. Convince her to join you

Lena steps back from the door and lets it swing open. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't need to — the apartment says everything. The wall of smell hits Lexi first, the thick composite of old food and stale beer and sweat and urine and something sour underneath that Lexi's nose identifies before her brain wants it to. Then the visual: the towers of takeout containers on every surface, the beer cans crushed into the carpet, the dark stains on the couch cushions, the laptop balanced on the armrest where Lena has been running a team of three while naked and high. Lexi stands in the doorway with her suitcase and her fitted blazer and her neat ponytail and doesn't move for a long moment.

"Come in," Lena says, and shuffles back to the couch. She drops onto the center cushion and the leather groans beneath her and her belly settles heavy against her thighs, the blanket riding up to expose the food stains on her collarbone and the coarse red hair under her arms. She watches her mother take in the room — the way Lexi's eyes track across the containers and the cans and the brown smears on the cushion nearest the bathroom, the way her nostrils flare and her jaw tightens and then releases, as though she is deciding not to react.

Lexi sets the suitcase against the wall. She picks her way across the floor in heels, stepping over a pizza box and a cluster of beer cans, and stops in the middle of the living room with her arms crossed.

"You look —" she starts, and stops. "You've gained weight. A lot of weight. And you're living in —" She gestures at the room without finishing the sentence.

"I know," Lena says. She runs a hand across her belly, slow and deliberate, letting Lexi see the gesture, letting her see that it isn't shame.

"I know what I look like. I know what this place looks like. Mom, I'm not sick. I got promoted. I'm running a team. I'm the best I've ever been at my job." She reaches for a warm beer on the coffee table and cracks it and takes a long drink.

"I'm comfortable. For the first time in my life, I'm actually comfortable in my body."

Lexi stares at her. The blazer pulls across her shoulders as she shifts her weight, and Lena notices for the first time that her mother is thin — not just slim but carefully thin, the kind of thin that requires work, the kind that requires constant vigilance. Lexi's collarbones are visible above the neckline of her blouse. Her wrists are narrow. She is standing the way Lena used to stand — shoulders pulled in, stomach held tight, the posture of a woman keeping herself contained. Lena sees it and something clicks.

"When's the last time you ate something that actually made you happy?" Lena asks. The question lands in the room like a stone in water. Lexi's mouth opens and closes.

"Sit down. Have a beer. You drove here, you're stressed, you're thin enough to blow away. Just — sit."

Lexi looks at the couch — at the stains, at the indent where Lena's vast body has worn a permanent impression — and her face moves through revulsion and something else, something that flickers too fast to name. She uncrosses her arms. She sits on the edge of the cushion, perched, upright, her blazer still buttoned. Lena pushes the beer toward her and after a long moment Lexi picks it up and drinks.