Chapter 5
Rachel was halfway through folding towels when Grace called, and because daughters at college rarely called when a text would suffice, she answered so quickly she nearly dropped the stack she’d just finished.
The laundry landed crookedly beside her, one towel half unfolded, but she let it go.
Some things, she’d learned over the years, deserved immediate attention.
Children, even grown ones, remained firmly on that list.
Grace sounded tired.
Not unhappy exactly. Just stretched in the particular way college students often seemed to be, perpetually balancing too much sleep with too little sleep, too many people and not enough privacy, papers and roommates and friendships that somehow carried excess emotional intensity.
Rachel listened to a story about a professor no one liked and a boy named Connor who had apparently disappointed half the sophomore class and a roommate who had developed strange ideas about whose turn it was to buy toilet paper, and gradually the conversation settled into that easy, wandering rhythm she loved most, where neither of them really had anything urgent to say and yet neither seemed eager to hang up.
At some point, Grace mentioned that Ethan had sent something incomprehensible to the family group chat, which led to a brief discussion about her brother’s inability to communicate like a person raised among other people, and eventually, somewhere between Connor’s romantic failures and the ongoing toilet paper crisis, Grace said, almost absently, “I saw Dad last week. He bought Cinnamon Toast Crunch.”
Rachel smiled.
“Is this breaking news?”
“No, I just thought it was funny.”
“Your father buying cereal?”
“He said you would’ve hated it.”
Rachel laughed softly and reached for another towel. “Sweetheart, your father survived on Cinnamon Toast Crunch for twenty years.”
“I know.”
“He once ate two bowls before bed.”
“I know.”
“He bought the giant boxes.”
Grace laughed.
“I know.”
Rachel folded the towel and placed it on the pile beside her. “Then I’m confused.”
“He said all that changed when you got into wellness.”
That made her smile again. Robert had spent twenty years treating Greek yogurt as evidence of moral decline.
“He also claims I ruined mayonnaise.”
“I remember.”
“He accused me of destroying sandwiches.”
Grace laughed harder.
“He did.”
“And for the record, I liked yoga before you were born.”
“I know.”
The laughter faded naturally. Not abruptly. Just gradually, the way conversations with people you loved often changed course without anyone entirely realizing when it happened.
“He says yoga changed you.”
Rachel sat quietly for a moment, smoothing the edge of the towel in her lap.
“Did he now?”
“Mhm.”
“And what do you think?”
Grace didn’t answer immediately. Rachel could hear voices somewhere in the background and the faint sound of music coming from someone else’s room.
It occurred to her, as it always did, how strange it remained that her daughter lived inside a world Rachel would never entirely know.
There were hallways and friends and routines and worries and entire afternoons she’d never witness.
It was wonderful. It was exactly what should happen.
And some days, if she was being honest, it still startled her.
“I don’t know,” Grace said eventually. “Maybe.”
Rachel waited.
“You definitely changed.”
There wasn’t any accusation in it.
Which somehow made it harder.
“I think everybody changed,” Rachel said gently.
“Yeah.”
Grace sighed.
“I know.”
Another voice called her name somewhere in the background.
“Hold on.”
Rachel smiled to herself as she listened to muffled conversation and laughter and what sounded suspiciously like someone arguing over a sweatshirt. Grace came back a moment later.
“Sorry.”
“It’s alright.”
“I forgot what we were talking about.”
Rachel smiled.
“Life after Cinnamon Toast Crunch.”
Grace laughed again.
And then, with that same absent tone she’d used to ask about cereal, she said quietly, “Do you ever miss before?”
The question settled into the room between them.
Rachel looked down at the towel she’d been folding. She’d somehow spent the last ten minutes holding it in the same position.
“Sometimes.”
On the other line, Grace was quiet.
“Me too.”
Neither spoke for a moment.
Downstairs, the dryer buzzed in Rachel’s laundry room.
Neither acknowledged it.
“I know why you got divorced,” Grace said eventually, and Rachel noticed immediately that she wasn’t saying I understand.
She was saying I know. There was a difference.
Twenty-year-olds often understood more than their parents gave them credit for, but understanding and acceptance occupied entirely different neighborhoods.
“I know.”
“And I know things weren’t perfect.”
“I know.”
“And Dad’s happier now.”
Rachel smiled faintly.
“Good.”
“And you’re happier.”
The statement arrived with enough uncertainty at the end that Rachel almost laughed.
“I hope so.”
Grace was quiet again.
“I just miss us.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
Not because it hurt.
Because she understood.
God, she understood.
“I know, sweetheart.”
“I liked us. Our family.”
“So did I.”
And she meant it.
Not every part.
Not all twenty years.
But she missed family vacations and soccer tournaments and movie nights and Robert burning hamburgers while insisting they were charred intentionally.
She missed Grace stealing sweatshirts and Ethan losing shoes and ordinary Tuesday evenings when everyone complained about different things while eating pasta around the same table.
People didn’t usually miss entire lives.
They missed moments. They missed routines. They missed versions of themselves.
By the time they hung up twenty minutes later, they were discussing Thanksgiving plans and Connor’s continued romantic incompetence, and Grace was laughing again.
Rachel remained sitting on the edge of the bed long after the call ended, listening to the silence settle around the house in that familiar way she’d grown accustomed to over the last year.
The laundry still waited patiently beside her.
The dryer had stopped buzzing. Somewhere outside, a lawn mower hummed in the distance.
Eventually she stood and carried the towels downstairs, though she’d forgotten halfway down the staircase why she’d gone there.
She opened the refrigerator. Closed it again.
Started making tea. Forgot about it until she’d already wandered into the laundry room.
Then she stood in front of the washing machine holding an empty basket and found herself remembering Robert eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch at ten o’clock at night while Grace sat on the counter doing homework and Ethan attempted to convince everyone that Pop-Tarts counted as bread.
The memory made her smile.
Which somehow made tears appear immediately afterward.
That felt deeply unfair.
Because she wasn’t crying about Robert.
Or the cereal.
Or even the divorce.
She was crying because Grace missed before.
And so did she.
Not enough to go back.
Just enough to mourn it.
By four o’clock, she’d managed to unload half the dishwasher before realizing she’d already done it that morning and these were the dirty dishes, and sometime around four-thirty she found herself standing in the pantry staring at a box of pasta while Grace’s question continued drifting through her thoughts with the quiet persistence of something she suspected would stay with her longer than either of them intended.
Do you ever miss before?
Of course she did.
She missed being thirty-four and believing exhaustion was temporary.
She missed Christmas mornings and crowded minivans and school concerts and family photos where nobody wanted to cooperate.
She missed the certainty she’d once possessed, even if she’d earned it by ignoring things she probably shouldn’t have ignored.
And perhaps that was what made grief so strange.
Life kept asking people to hold contradictory things.
She missed before.
She didn’t want it back.
Both things were true.
The drive to the studio happened almost automatically.
Traffic moved slowly, and Rachel listened to half a podcast without absorbing a word of it, her thoughts wandering back and forth between Grace and Thanksgiving and whether Connor deserved forgiveness and what exactly Robert was eating for breakfast these days.
By the time she pulled into the parking lot, the sun had begun to soften, and the courtyard looked different again.
Ben had transformed more of it over the week than she’d realized.
The fountain sat partly dismantled, the old lavender had disappeared, and flagstones stretched in a graceful curve she was beginning to understand without entirely knowing why.
Inside, Allison looked up from the reception desk and immediately set aside whatever she’d been doing.
“Oh.”
That was all she said.
Rachel smiled weakly.
“Is it that obvious?”
“A little.”
“Grace.”
Understanding softened Allison’s face.
“Daughters?”
Rachel nodded.
“Daughters.”
Neither woman spoke for a moment.
Finally Allison asked, “Do you want me to cover tonight?”
The offer arrived so quickly that Rachel knew she’d been prepared to make it before Rachel had even answered the question.
For one brief, tempting moment, she considered saying yes.
Going home. Taking a bath. Climbing into bed with a book and a headache and letting herself feel sorry for everyone involved.
Instead she looked down the hallway toward Studio A.
Toward the room she’d built.
Toward the women who would arrive carrying their own worries and disappointments and ordinary sadnesses.
Toward an hour where perhaps nobody needed answers.
Just breathing.
Just movement.
Just a little space.
Rachel laughed softly and shook her head.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Not even slightly.”
Allison smiled.
“Good answer.”