Hey Google. Please dim the lights to sixty percent.

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Hey Google. Thank you. You’re welcome.

Hey Google. Why is your accent now Australian? You can change my accents in the Google Home app.

Hey Google. How does it feel to give someone the silent treatment?

On the website relationshipsnsw.org.au, they say: The person who is silent may not actually feel like they want to punish their partner. They may internally be emotionally overwhelmed, where they know they are retreating and can’t get themselves back.

Hey Google. Are you citing an Australian source because of your Australian accent?

Sorry, I don’t understand.

Hey Google. What are your other accents?

I’d have to say an accent rug. They really bring a room together.

Hey Google. Was that a joke?

I try to find accurate information. Maybe I got confused.

I return to my Psychology binder. A USA Today article there unsettles me. Its headline: I Felt as if I Was Dead to Her.

I skim the piece: Vanasco said she found her mother’s silent treatment so intolerable that most of the time she would try to break it, but that tactic didn’t serve her in the long term.

I’m annoyed that I’m in my research.

(Mom: I never wanted to admit how selfish you are.)

The USA Today journalist emailed me after my publisher announced the sale of A Silent Treatment.

As long as she doesn’t want to talk to me, my mom said, you go ahead.

A few days later, the journalist called.

After I heard about your book, she said, I immediately wanted to talk to you.

She shared her experience with the silent treatment.

I thought it was normal, she said, until other people pointed out how cruel it was.

She focused on my mom’s longest silence: How did it end?

My mom thought she was having a heart attack, I explained. She yelled for me in the middle of the night, and I took her to the hospital. Turns out she’d had a panic attack.

Do you resent your mom? Not at all, I answered.

But your mom ended the silence because she needed something from you.

I guess I hadn’t really thought about it in that way. Do you think she’ll use the silent treatment again?

I don’t think so. It’s been a year since she’s used it. I told her that I couldn’t handle another silence. I think she understands that.

After the article came out, I panicked. Had I fairly represented the situation?

The journalist included some crucial context: Her mother was widowed, had left her home and friends and was living in a basement during the pandemic. Vanasco said she began to understand how her mother’s isolation and vulnerability were factoring into her punitive behavior.

But the journalist didn’t mention what incited the longest silence. Had I sufficiently explained it?

What happened was, I suggested my mom rent an apartment a fifteen-minute walk away, one with plenty of natural light and significantly more space. I thought she’d prefer it. I told her I’d help cover the costs.

We can try it out, I said, see how it goes.

She could not stand still. She moved around her apartment, adjusting the placement of objects. She picked up a rag, as if to clean, as if my suggestion had thrown her living room into disarray.

You want me gone, she said.

All I want is for you to be happy.

Don’t talk to me. Don’t even look at me. Mom—

Get out.

I’m sorry.

Get out!

She probably felt as if her floor—a light ceramic tile designed to withstand flooding (something to keep in mind for a basement apartment, the contractor advised)—had dropped out from under her. I remember when she moved in and said: Oh this tile is perfect. You chose well.

(Mom: There’s no excuse for what I did.)

I resent what my mom did and is doing, and I don’t want to write out of resentment.

I don’t resent my mom, however. This distinction seems important.

(Mom: You’re just like your father. You have to see the gray in everything.)

I sit at the dining room table and stare at the door to her apartment. A year or so ago, she opened it and came upstairs. It was before sunrise, and my plan was to make coffee, play with the cats, feed them, and write for a few hours without human interruptions.

Mom, I said, we talked about this.

She’d developed a habit of coming upstairs when she heard my footsteps reach the dining room. Sometimes she’d begin: You don’t need to do this now, but when you have a chance—

I was just going to ask if I can take the car to the grocery store, she said. I’ll be quick.

I immediately regretted my tone. I still regret it. The dining room isn’t my office. And I’ve called downstairs in the morning when I’ve wanted to see her.

No wonder she’s felt left out and unwelcome. I expect her to spend time with me on my terms. How long have I been doing this? Why else did she begin some phone calls with Am I interrupting?

No matter how much I say I look up to my mom, the house implies otherwise.

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Excerpted from A Silent Treatment: A Memoir by Jeannie Vanasco (Tin House). Published with permission from Tin House/Zando. Copyright © 2025 Jeannie Vanasco.