Chapter 40
The call-and-response of Celeste’s cardinals poured through her kitchen window, mocking her with their easy devotion.
“Sure, guys,” she muttered. “Rub it in.”
Not that it was their fault she was stuck in some angsty no-woman’s-land territory, trying to trust herself without understanding just where it had gotten her. As far as she could tell, trusting her instincts meant taking a lot of very hot baths and writing texts to John she didn’t send. Texts about the cardinals in her yard, about a black phoebe she’d IDed without even cracking open her guidebook, about a story on the radio examining the potential for large-scale desalinization to address the inevitable water crisis. Hell, she’d even written a text about her switch to oat milk in her coffee.
None of which was what she really wanted to say to John.
The problem was figuring out what she did want to say. What she wanted at all. She’d leaned so hard into her postdivorce fly-solo plan, she wasn’t sure she could find solid ground without it.
And she and Morgan were still dealing with the fallout from their argument, now two weeks old. They’d settled into a cold war that had lasted days, full of vacant stares in the kitchen and short texts from Morgan informing Celeste she’d be spending the night at her dad’s.
Instead of driving John from her mind, the tension with Morgan made her miss him even more. He had a gift for helping her settle, a subtle way of calming her with a simple touch or a small smile. But she couldn’t reach for that comfort without being sure of what she could offer. He’d made that much clear the night he left. And he deserved that, and more.
And she was a mom first, plain and simple. Maybe it wouldn’t always be that way. Morgan was growing up and away from her exactly as she should, but for now Celeste wanted to travel back two weeks and somehow stop their blowup. Shit, she wanted to travel back years and hold little Morgan in her arms.
But all they could do was grow.
“Hey, Mom.”
Morgan appeared in the kitchen doorway, hair piled on her head. A simple “hey” was friendlier than she’d been for days.
“Hey.” Celeste put down the coffee that had been cooling in her hands, oat milk and all.
“Um, so, Em’s aunt, you know with the house in LA, she’s going to be in town next weekend and we thought it would be good to meet with all the parents.”
“Oh. Well—”
“Mom.” Morgan’s tone was short. “Please don’t start. This isn’t an invitation to tell me not to go.”
“I know, honey.” Celeste sighed. “I know. And I’m still not thrilled, but I’m… resigned.” It was obvious Morgan was determined to go, and Celeste didn’t want to alienate her even further. And the plan to meet up with the aunt was a good one. “And I would, of course, love to meet Em’s aunt. Will the mysterious Em be there as well?”
“Em’s not mysterious, Mom.” Morgan rolled her eyes. “You’ve known them since they were ten.”
“Sure I have, but not like this. Not as my daughter’s…” Celeste paused, unsure of what word to land on.
“Person,” Morgan offered, a blush rising in her cheeks. “I just call them my person.”
Seeing the hearts fly out of Morgan’s eyes didn’t raise Celeste’s hackles as much as she’d expected. Instead, she felt proud of Morgan and Em for carving out space for themselves when outdated labels didn’t fit.
“Can your person come over for dinner next week?” Morgan bit her lip, but Celeste kept going. “It’s not a trap, Morgan. I promise no LA talk unless it’s researching museums, okay? I just want to spend time with you both.”
Morgan looked unconvinced, but she nodded. “Okay.”
Morgan tugged at her hair and glanced out of the room. “Um, can I borrow the lip gloss you have? The shiny stuff?”
“Of course.” First a “hey,” now lip-gloss borrowing? This was incredible progress. “You know where it is.”
Morgan cleared her throat. “Well, I looked and I couldn’t find it. Could you look, maybe? For me?”
“All right.” Celeste shrugged and headed toward her bathroom. She kept all her rarely used cosmetics in the same drawer, so she wasn’t sure why Morgan couldn’t find it. Once in her bathroom, she opened the drawer and pulled it right out, but when she straightened up again she caught sight of the mirror.
All her notes were gone, the mirror clean and shiny.
All the notes but two, written in Morgan’s handwriting.
She turned to look for her daughter, but Morgan was already there, smiling and leaning against the doorway. She slid her hands into the back pockets of her cutoffs and shrugged. “I wanted to say sorry for the whole ‘fuck you’ thing. And for not telling you earlier about the LA stuff.” She looked down, pursing her lips. “And also for—well, Em thought maybe I was a little harsh when I railed on you about splitting up the family. And they’re smart and”—she swallowed—“right, in this case. Anyway, I wanted to do something nice, so I made you some new mantras that I thought you might need.”
“Hon.” Celeste glanced back at the new notes, her throat tightening, before turning her attention to Morgan. “Thank you. I accept your apology.” She sat against the counter, taking a breath. “But I did split up our family. I didn’t do it out of spite, or wanting to hurt anyone, but a fact’s a fact. And I regret causing people pain, especially you, but I wouldn’t do it differently. And you’re allowed to feel about it however you feel about it, okay?”
Morgan nodded and gave a little sniff but kept her eyes on the ground. “Okay.”
“But, honey”—Celeste reached a hand out to tip Morgan’s chin up—“don’t you ever say ‘fuck you’ to me again, do you understand? I expect more creativity from you.”
Her daughter smirked and rolled her eyes. “I’ll try harder next time.”
“Lord help me,” Celeste groaned, turning back to the mirror. “You want to tell me about these?”
Morgan leaned forward and pulled a pink Post-it note off the mirror and handed it to Celeste.
Listen to yourself.
“I was just thinking,” Morgan said, “that you had all this advice up here like you actually needed it. But you’re smart and confident and really good at helping everybody get their shit together, even if you’re too bossy about it sometimes, and I think you can do that for yourself, too. If you give yourself a chance.”
Celeste turned the note around in her hand. “Have you been talking to Maria?”
“Uh, no. Why?”
“It’s just…” Celeste read the note again. “She said something similar.”
Morgan’s smile cracked a little wider. “Maybe it’s because we both know you best.”
They really did. And Celeste could hardly believe her luck. “Moo.”
Morgan’s eyes went wide. “Do not cry, Mom. Seriously.”
“Oh honey.” Celeste scooped Morgan into her arms, hugging her tight. “Of course I’m going to cry.”
And she did, shedding tears onto Morgan’s shoulder as her daughter finally wrapped her arms around her, squeezing her back. After a long moment Celeste pulled away and held Morgan by the shoulders.
She looked at her daughter with amazement, marveling at how far they’d both come. This was the little girl who’d hiked three miles with a bleeding knee because she was determined to draw the view from the top of the mountain, the girl who’d pushed a boy into his locker when he’d purposely misgendered Em, the girl who worked her pencils to nubs to understand a new technique.
The young woman who’d seen the path everyone expected her to take and had decided on something else, something that would feed her passion.
“I am so proud of you, baby. And I’m not going to pretend I like the LA plan, but I really am proud of you for setting your own course. You amaze me every single day.”
Morgan nodded as tears spilled out of her own eyes. She quickly wiped them away with the back of her hand and nodded toward the mirror. “There’s one more.”
Celeste glanced at the second note, shaking her head.
Call John.
“What would you know about me needing to call John?”
“Oh, let’s think,” Morgan scoffed, giving a final sniff. “You were seeing John a bunch and you were super cheerful, like all the time. Now he’s disappeared and you’re listening to your sad-lady music anytime you’re at home, which is barely at all. Plus, I’ve been waiting for you to bug me to go to his birding thing tomorrow, but you haven’t even mentioned it, so I’m pretty sure you guys aren’t talking.”
Celeste was about to take offense at “sad-lady music” when her brain caught up. “What birding thing?”
Morgan cocked her head, then pulled her phone out of her pocket and did some swiping. “This birding thing.”
She held out the phone to Celeste, an Instagram post up on the screen. It was a logo—blue mountains and cacti in the background, with the outlines of birds in the sky and illustrated streaks of sun against blue. The foreground contained a pair of binoculars leaning against some hiking boots, with words in bold cutting across:
Wings of Discovery
Guided bird-watching for the beginning birder
This wasn’t the personal account he’d begrudgingly started. The description announced a free walk the next morning guided by “local birder John Maguire.” It was smart—give people a taste of what it was like to bird with John, and they’d come back clamoring for more.
“He’s doing it.” A smile grew on her still-wet face. “He’s really doing it.”
But Morgan yanked the phone away, eyeing Celeste seriously. “So what happened there, Mom?”
Celeste just shook her head. She and Morgan had had enough drama. “Nothing you need to worry about, honey.”
“If you tell me, I’ll do one dinner-and-movie night with you every week until I move.”
“All summer?” Celeste clarified, and Morgan nodded.
But Celeste hesitated, pulling at her hair. “You’re sure this is okay to talk about with you? It doesn’t make you uncomfortable?”
“What makes me uncomfortable is Joni Mitchell blaring every time you take a shower. If I hear ‘A Case of You’ one more time, I will perish on the spot. Please, just spill.”
Celeste laughed as she lifted herself to a seat on the bathroom counter. “John and I were friends, and”—she cleared her throat—“and a little bit more. And he said he had feelings for me.”
Morgan nodded, her arms crossed against her chest, a smile playing on her face. “And what did you say?”
Celeste blushed. “I said no.”
Morgan stared at her for a beat. “Okay. But you like him?”
Celeste sighed, peeling the Call John note off the mirror and rubbing it with her fingers. “Yeah. I really, really do. But, hon, I never wanted you to think you weren’t my top priority, and—”
“Seriously, Mom. I would love to not be your top priority.”
Celeste laughed and pulled a tissue out of the box on her counter for a hearty blow.
“If you’re scared of something,” Morgan continued, “don’t make it about me. And don’t make it about him. This is on you.”
Celeste blinked, floored by Morgan’s simple wisdom. If she were talking to herself as a friend right now, she’d say she’d done a fucking awesome job raising this kid.
“You can really be a know-it-all.”
Morgan spread her arms wide, eyebrows up. “I learned from the best.”
Celeste hopped off the counter and wrapped an arm around Morgan’s waist, turning them both to face the mirror. Looking at herself, side by side with her daughter, she had never felt more beautiful.
And it was a hell of a lot easier to see herself without all those damn notes in the way.
Celeste caught Morgan’s eye in the reflection and grinned. “I’d like to do more than just call him, I think. I’d like to make a statement. Something he deserves. You seem pretty good at this stuff. Do you have any advice?”
Morgan was still for a moment, then her mouth curved up.
“I have an idea, but we need supplies. You order a pizza and I’ll call Em.” She turned to Celeste, her smile sky-high. “This is going to be so much fun.”