I take one of the too-small waxy napkins from the metal dispenser. “I think she was right, anyway,” I whisper, and wipe my nose.
He looks up from blowing on his coffee, startled. “What now?”
“About me not being ready,” I explain.
His eyes sharpen, and he clunks his coffee down. “You got that wrong. All wrong. And I thought you were smart. You’re wrong, cuz she was wrong. It was never about you not being ready, kiddo. It was always about her.”
I set my jaw stubbornly. “Stop trying to make me feel better.”
He fixes me with a stern glare. “That’s the truth. She wasn’t ready to let you face the world. But you been ready, kid. She made sure of it.”
He shifts in his chair to dig into his jacket and pulls out a small, square pocket Bible. I recognize the worn, cracked brown leather and the gilded golden edges immediately. It’s my mother’s. The one she carried with her everywhere.
“Flip to the back.” He hands it to me and I take it, pushing my untouched plate of food aside to clear a space on the table. “Probably not something she meant for anyone to see, but…” He shrugs. “I love her, and I miss her, and…” His eyes fill with tears, and he squeezes them and lets out a breath. “I think she’ll forgive us for snoopin’.”
I open the Bible with shaking fingers. It feels like I’m touching something intimate and private, and I am. Personal Bibles, even though I’ve never owned one, always seem mystical. Like the longer someone carries one, the more their spirit lives in the pages. As I flip through the thin, small-print paper, her smell wafts over my nose: verbena and lemon, mixed with a bit of leather. The last section is blank, for notes. On the very last page, in curling script and dated just last year, is a small note.
Lord, she is already stronger than I ever was.
I worry her challenges will be just as powerful.
I worry that I am running out of time.
Please, protect her and give me the strength to let her go.
“Got something else for ya too, kid. It’s in the car. Be right back.” My dad puts his napkin aside and shoves out of the booth. I nod and stare down at the Bible in my hands, letting the gift of her words wash over me.
My mother had carried so much pain from her own loss. Maybe the exact things Patricia said I had inside me: traumatic grief, PCBD grief. Then, after I was born, it became anxiety. Maybe she’d had the feeling like she could explode. Maybe she’d had my fear and fury. And she hid it from me as best she could.
Just knowing that we have this in common, knowing my feelings are an echo of hers, is a revelation. It makes me sad that she suffered. It makes me wish I could talk to her about it. It makes me want to tell her that I understand. I’ve been chasing the hidden truth for so long, and now I find out that one of her truths already lives inside me. It makes me feel closer to her somehow, and right now, that feels like enough.
When my dad slides back into the booth, he’s laughing under his breath. “I thought about maybe donating her clothes. You know how many clothes she had. And shoes, my God.”
I smile. “Tall order. You might have to take a few trips to the donation center.”
“Yeah,” he says with a sigh. “Bringin’ myself to do it’s another thing. Rich Glover down at the shop lost his wife last year. He says that once you get rid of their clothes, that’s when you know they’re really gone.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I was in the closet the other day, and I found this. Thought you might like to have it.”
He hands me a square blue velvet box. I recognize it immediately: this is where she stored her golden charm bracelet. She’d only ever had two charms on it—one with my name and one with my father’s. It wasn’t one of her nicer pieces, but it’s the one she seemed to love the most. Even now, the smell of her in the velvet is strong and alive, like she’d never left. It overwhelms me, bypassing any rational parts of my brain and zinging straight to memory. It pulls at a weekend of shopping with her at the mall, unearths the sensation of her hugs, sinks me down into her lap when I was little, rushes me past every single one of her cool hands on my forehead when I was sick. I move to open it, but he stops me. “Open it when you get back to your room.”
I eye him. “So I’m going back to my room? You’re not gonna tell me not to study too hard?”
“You can study hard, but only if that’s how you want to do it.” He gives me a wry smile. “No matter what you do, you gotta live your life, kiddo. You gotta be in the world. That’s what she would want you to do.” He reaches across the table to take both of my hands in his. “Don’t make your life about the loss. Make it about the love.”
42
BY THE TIME I get back to the room after my morning class, the clenched fist of regret in my chest has loosened. I set my book bag down and pull out my mother’s velvet box, place it on my bed, think of my father’s face and words.
Make it about the love.
Could I do that? Really? As soon as I try, I miss her. I miss her voice and her smile. I miss hugging her and feeling whole.
I look down at the box again and feel ready, pick it up. “Make it about the love,” I murmur.
I take a deep breath, flip open the lid—and the room fills with mage flame.
Silver and gold smoke dances up the walls and floods the ceiling with light. Everywhere the flame touches my skin feels like the caress of her hands. My nose fills with the scents of verbena and lemon, bright and sharp and warm. I’m on my knees before I know it, hands shaking.
Inside the box my mother’s charm bracelet is pulsing like a heartbeat. When the tips of my fingers touch the gold links, a voice echoes in my mind.
“Bree…”
I drop it. I’m gasping, choking, sobbing. “Mommy…?”
As soon as I lift the bracelet and grasp it in my hands, my eyes flutter shut.
A memory takes me over.
* * *
We are on the lawn outside the fairgrounds. I bounce up and down with unrestrained glee, because today is the first time I’ve gone to the fair. Ever. Faint screams of joy rise and fall in the background in time to the roller coaster and Tilt-A-Whirl. I can already smell the deep-fried Snickers bars. The sweet, hot scent of funnel cake is so close, I can almost taste the powdered sugar.
I remember this. I was seven. The annual state fair was a monumental experience, one my friends spoke of in excited, envy-inducing whispers. But I don’t remember my mother guiding me to a bench outside before we went in. In the memory, she wears a loose white button-up blouse under a lavender cardigan. Her straight hair is pulled back. Our shared strong jawline is lined with tension.
She sits down across from me and rubs her palms down her pants.
“Just for a minute, I promise. Then we’ll go inside.” My mother’s eyes flick over my head, like she’s looking at someone behind me. I turn to follow her gaze, but she presses fingers to my chin and turns me back. “Look at me, Bree. Then we can go inside and get fried Twinkies.”
“Okay!” I say, and bounce again.
My mother pushes out a short, fast breath, and her gaze sharpens on mine. “Mommy has to say something hard to someone else, like a speech, but I need your help practicing first. Is that okay? Will you help me practice? Mommy’s going to say a lot, and I just want you to listen for now, okay? Like the silent game.” I nod, and she reaches for my head and pulls it gently down so she can kiss the crown of my hair. “Good girl. Thank you.”