Chapter Twelve
M onday night, I’m on my bed reading for school when my phone rings.
I drop the book to my side and scooch my body up so my back is straight against the headboard. “Hi, Mom,” I answer.
“How are you, sweetheart?”
My shoulders relax and my legs go soft at the warmth in her voice.
We’ve never been Rory–Lorelai close, but we haven’t spoken in a couple of weeks, and I miss her.
The call starts out as usual. I’m fine. So is she.
Her job is good… busy. School is going well.
It’s the same basic catch-up as always since neither of us ever have anything earth shattering to share.
“How’s Marcia?”
“She’s great. Well… she had a little issue with her back this weekend, but she’s fine now.”
“I’m glad it’s nothing serious.”
“So am I. She bounced back like a boss.” I smile to myself. I still can’t believe she went to yoga class the next morning.
“How are things going with her and her grandson?”
“Really great. Her face is permanently lit up around him. It’s adorable.”
“How about you two? Are you getting along?”
I shift on the bed. “Me and Adam?” A flush whips across my face as I flash back, for at least the twentieth time in as many hours, to dragging him into the tiny bathroom at Keybar where, thanks to multiple Rolo shots, I finally blurted out what I’d overheard.
I’m so glad I did because things are back to normal between us again.
After witnessing his mother go through a stolen identity experience at such a young age, of course he’s more cautious and would want to warn Marcia against trusting strangers with personal information.
My combination of anger and sadness disappeared once I knew it was less about me and more about making sure Marcia was aware of the dangers out there.
I don’t think she’s na?ve enough to get catfished, but it’s not the same world she grew up in.
“How are you coping with living with a man?” Mom asks.
It’s a valid question since my households have been exclusively female for most of my life.
I was only four when my dad left. My grandparents moved in with us, but after my grandpa died when I was nine, it was just me, Audrina, Mom, and Nana.
I had female roommates in college and again when I moved into the city.
“No issues on that front.” Anymore. He thinks I smell good.
He likes me. Whatever that means. If someone hadn’t banged on the bathroom door, would we have kissed?
A fluttery sensation crops up in my tummy at the thought.
“As long as you’re okay.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I just thought it might be hard to see them together. I know how much you miss Nana,” she says softly.
I close my eyes to fight the memory of Nana crying the morning I left for college for the first time.
She held me so hard, and I wiggled out of her embrace in a rush to get to the dorms. I didn’t come home for Rosh Hashanah freshman year because I’d only been at school for two weeks, and she died from a sudden stroke before Thanksgiving break.
I never got to say I was sorry, not just for cutting our hug short but for the teenage angst that destroyed our close relationship.
Unfortunately for me, being kind to someone else’s grandmother doesn’t make up for being ungrateful to my own. I swallow down the lump in my throat.
“Sabrina?”
I jolt and wipe the tears from my eyes. “I’m here.”
“Anything else new?”
I scrape my fingers across my comforter.
I asked my advisor for an extension for the fellowship this morning, but he said the deadlines are airtight because only ten fellowships are available.
My only hope for a loophole is if fewer than ten students applied on time. As this is unlikely, I’m screwed.
I’m at a crossroads. If I tell my mom I dropped the ball, she might drill me about my game plan like I’m one of her subordinates at work.
Except there’s also a possibility she’ll reassure me it’s not the end of the world.
She knows I’m serious about my future and not about to let hiccups derail me long-term.
She might even offer to loan me money for my living expenses without interest. I can already imagine her devising a formal scheduled payment plan to ensure I don’t feel entitled to it or take it for granted.
Like it’s possible given the example she showed me.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to spill the entire story.
Then I think of how tirelessly she worked to get where she is all on her own with two little girls to clothe and feed on an entry-level salary thanks to a deadbeat husband and father.
My life is easy in comparison, and I have no excuse for missing the deadline aside from dismissing my reminder, which never should have happened.
Do I want to come clean, or is it better to keep my shame a secret?
WWMD? What would Mom do?
She’d figure it out on her own, and so will I.
“Nothing else is new.” I twirl a lock of hair around my finger while my mind justifies the decision to lie.
The fellowship was never guaranteed even if I’d submitted a timely application.
I’m not any worse off than I was before I missed the deadline.
I merely lost out on an opportunity to be better off.
Unfortunately, I need to be better off… even a little bit.
I decide to ask for more hours at the library.
If I have to delay graduation by an extra semester to make more money to pay my living expenses, so be it.
It seems so important now, but no one is going to ask how long it took to get my master’s when I’m Marcia’s age.
The conversation wraps up and I tell Mom I’ll be home for her birthday and Passover the following month. We end the call. Then I lose myself in a study on cultural diversity in young adult literature for school until my eyes refuse to stay open any longer.