Chapter Forty-One
Mila
The day after Founder’s Day, my mother asks me if I’ll get her scrapbooks down from her closet shelf.
“Sure,” I say. “Can I look at them with you?”
“Of course.” She looks pleased.
I practically float into her bedroom. I’ve been on a cloud all day today, remembering the things Everett said Friday, how it felt to dance with him last night, the possessive way he likes to stand behind me with an arm around my waist.
It feels right. All of it.
My mom’s closet is neatly organized, and I have no trouble spotting the storage bin on the top shelf labeled ELIZA MISC. But it’s heavy, and there’s a box on top of it, so I run to the basement and grab a small stepladder.
Once I’m up on the ladder, I can easily slide the box on the top to the side and pull the storage bin down.
As I slide it over the edge of the shelf, something else comes with it and hits the floor.
I carefully step down the ladder and set the bin down, pausing to sneeze at the dust I disturbed.
When I turn around, I discover a plain manila folder on the rug in front of the closet.
I pick it up with the intention of sticking it back on the shelf when something slides out—a drawing. When I glance down at it, I suck in my breath.
It’s me.
I reach down and pick it up, holding it by one corner. Within a few seconds of studying it, I realize my mistake.
It isn’t me. It’s my mom.
She’s about my age in the pencil sketch, maybe even younger.
The artist drew her head, neck, and one bare shoulder.
The other is covered by a cascade of hair.
I look closer, marveling at each finely drawn eyelash.
The lightness in her eyes. The shading beneath her jaw and cheekbones.
Most astonishing to me is the expression on her face.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it before. It’s vulnerable and alluring at the same time.
She’s exquisitely beautiful. I have the sense that whoever drew this loved her face. Loved her.
It’s not signed.
Heart pounding, I open the folder, hoping to find more artwork, but it’s empty.
More than anything, I want to show her what I found and ask her about it. Did she remember posing for him? Did he draw her often? Does she still think about him?
But what’s the use? She won’t answer my questions honestly. She might even be offended I asked. Ask me why I insist on making her talk about painful pieces of her past. Twist things around so I end up apologizing for wanting to know my own story.
“Mila, what’s taking you so long?”
“Coming!” I tuck the sketch into the folder and slip it back onto the shelf, resigned to being kept in the dark.
But then I change my mind.
I don’t want to run from these conversations anymore. Maybe she won’t give me any answers, but I can at least find the strength to ask the questions.
I grab the folder and place it on top of the scrapbooks in the bin. Then I carry it out to the living room where she’s sitting on the couch.
“I found something,” I tell her.
“What?”
Setting the bin down, I pick up the folder and hand it to her. “This.”
She opens it up. Inhales sharply. For a fraction of a second, I see pain flicker across her face. Then her expression goes steely again. “Where did you get this?”
“It fell out of your closet when I pulled down the bin.” I lower myself onto the couch. “It’s beautiful. Can you tell me about it?”
“There’s nothing to tell.” She tosses it onto the coffee table. “I don’t even know why I kept it.”
“Obviously, it meant something to you.” I pause. “Did he draw it? My father?”
“He must have.” She reaches into the bin and pulls out a scrapbook.
Opens it up to a page in the middle and points to two photos of herself in Swan Lake—one as Odette, the virtuous white swan, and one as the temptress black swan, Odile.
She taps the page. “This was a role you were born to dance. Well, it’s two roles, of course. ”
“I’d like to know more about him.”
“You had the technique but also the dramatic expression. You could have mastered those fragile, boneless arms of the dying swan.”
“Mom.”
“Of course, the role is famously demanding. It required almost superhuman stamina. Maybe you wouldn’t have had the strength.”
I press my lips together. “Can you please answer my question?”
She turns a page. “Aurora in Sleeping Beauty. That’s a role you’d have been suited for, too.” A long sigh as she brushes her hand over the page. “But my dreams for you have turned to dust.”
“Mom.” Grabbing the book off her lap, I drop it back in the bin and stand up. “Stop avoiding this. I want to talk about him.”
“Well, I don’t.” She folds her arms over her chest and scowls up at me. “And I won’t. He made his choice.”
“You’d rather sit there and make me feel bad about the life I’ve chosen?” I touch my chest.
“I’m not trying to make you feel bad, Mila. I’m just saying I had hopes for you.”
The hurt nearly chokes me. “God, Mom. Do you know how bad that makes me feel?”
“How do you think I feel?” She gestures toward the mantel behind me. “Every day, I look at that crown, and I feel sad thinking about what might have been.”
Outrage crashes through my veins. I turn around, snatch the tiara off the shelf and march toward the front door.
“Where are you going with that?” she demands. “It’s mine.”
“Actually, it’s mine. And I’m taking it out of here so you never have to look at it and feel sad again. You’re fucking welcome.”
I walk fast, fueled by fury. I don’t even know where I’m going. At the corner, I turn left and realize my feet have led me to the park where I walked with Everett the day after our first date.
I plunk myself on the bench we sat on, the tiara beside me, and pull out my phone.
Mila: I need you.
Everett: Where are you?
Mila: The park. Our bench.
Everett: I’ll be there in 15 minutes.
It’s a little chillier today, and I left the house in a tank top. I wrap my arms around myself and try not to shiver. A little less than fifteen minutes later, Everett enters the park and jogs over to the bench.
“Hey.” Right away, he notices I’m cold and whips off his sweatshirt. “Here, put this on.” He holds it out for me, and I slip my arms in, pulling it over my head.
“Thanks.” It smells like him, and I inhale deeply, letting the scent fill my head.
He sits down next to me and picks up the tiara. “What’s going on, babe?”
“I had a fight with my mom.”
He gathers me close to his side. “Talk to me.”
I tell him about finding the drawing. About trying to ask my mother about it and being ignored and then insulted. “So I took the thing she cared about and left.”
He kisses my head. “I’m proud of you.”
“You don’t think I acted like a child throwing a tantrum?”
“Not one bit.” He turns the tiara this way and that. Its rhinestones catch the light. “Damn, this thing is heavy.”
“I know. It hurts to wear.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know.” Out of the corner of my eye, I spy a garbage receptacle. “Trash it?”
The idea of putting one of my mother’s most prized possessions in the garbage fills me with equal parts glee and dread.
In so many ways, this tiara represents the version of me Mom loved best. Part of me will always crave her approval, her love.
But if I put the tiara in the trash, would I be throwing away any chance of capturing that approval and love ever again?
And… Do I care?
“If that’s what you want to do, I’d understand. But there won’t be any getting it back.”
“True.” I think for a minute, letting myself bask in the handful of good memories I hold in the most secret corners of my heart.
The day we painted my dresser. The Christmas morning we made hot cocoa from scratch.
The warm, unbridled embrace she wrapped me in when I won my first scholarship at YAGP.
“I guess I don’t really want to destroy it.
I just wanted her to know that it hurts my feelings when she acts like I peaked at sixteen. ”
When she dismisses my artwork as doodles.
When she tells me I can’t trust my heart.
When she makes it impossible to know if I am loved.
The quiet stretches over us like a blanket. Everett is in no rush to fill it, leaving me space to feel all my feelings—the sad ones and the ugly ones in equal measure. Eventually, he says, “So maybe just keep it for a while. You can give it back later, if you want.”
“Okay.” The thought makes me feel better.
“I talked to Gabi this afternoon,” he says, as he casually slides the tiara onto the bench behind him and turns his body to block it from my view—subtly giving me the chance to stop seeing, talking, and thinking about it. This man. “She conned me into helping her move next weekend.”
“What a good brother.” I snuggle closer into his side, wrapping my arms around his waist. “Thanks for coming to be with me. I know you’re busy and lots of people depend on you.”
“Anytime, Freckles. I told you before. I’m here for you when you need me. Doesn’t matter the time or place or reason.”
“Will you come to the diner with me tomorrow to meet the mysterious eyewitness?”
“Of course I will.”
“Thanks.” I close my eyes and wonder if this is what it feels like.
Unconditional love.
The next night, Everett picks me up just before five. As soon as I see his car pull into the driveway, I hurry out the front door, eager to escape the tension in the house.
“Hey.” Everett leans over and kisses me once I’m buckled in. “How’s it going?”
“Okay. She’s still giving me the silent treatment.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“I don’t know what else she wants from me. I apologized for what I said.”
“I don’t even think you owed her an apology.”
I hold up my hands. “I know, but I have to live with her. At least for two more weeks. I’ve learned that sometimes it’s just easier to say the thing she wants to hear.”
“If you say so.” Everett backs out of the driveway and heads for town.
“She asked me where the tiara was.” I glance into the back seat of the truck, where the bejeweled monstrosity rests on the leather. “I told her it’s in a time-out.”
Everett chuckles. “Was she mad?”
“What do you think?”
We park in the mayor’s spot and walk to the diner. Everett takes my hand as we amble down the block. “All set for tomorrow at the foundry? Dr. Yang says he’ll be there at eleven.”
“Yes. I’m excited to hear what he has to say.”
“I’m excited to meet this mysterious eyewitness.” He opens the diner door for me. “Who do you think it could be?”
“I have no idea,” I say as we make our way toward the back. “Someone who likes trash-picking in the alley, I guess. I keep trying to—”
I stop walking. Grab his arm. “Oh, my God. It’s Stevie.”