Chapter 28
I’m flat on my back, eyes trained on one particular glow-in-the-dark star on my ceiling.
It’s four days until Christmas, but it feels strange being in Texas.
My teenage bed, my One Direction posters covering every available inch of wall space.
I was just here back in the summer, but I don’t even feel like that person anymore.
And I’m certainly not the girl I was when One Direction was still together, though I’d do some pretty shady shit to see Harry Styles in concert.
Not showing up for Christmas was never an option, but leaving Liam back in Singing River weighs heavy on me.
He seems more himself with each passing day, but to my knowledge, he still hasn’t made that therapy appointment.
I worry it’s only a matter of time before he’s back in the same shape he was in last month.
A light rap on my door interrupts these thoughts and I rise onto an elbow.
“Come in.”
The door creaks open and Mom peeks in. She’s still as timid as ever.
but she looks even better than the last time I saw her.
The frailty is fading, but it’s more than that.
She’s not a wilted houseplant, forgotten and neglected in the corner.
She looks like she’s finally been watered, lifting to life again.
“Ashley needs a taste tester. She told me to grab you.”
I know what my aunt is doing. Not long ago I confided in her how desperately I want to know Mom, but over Thanksgiving it became quite clear that there’s some sort of block.
Forging a new relationship is harder than I ever anticipated. A couple times while she was in Singing River she’d try to give me motherly advice and I’d bristle. An inner voice hissing “she hasn’t earned the right to give me advice.” But I’d instantly feel like a monster at the thought.
So, yeah. It’s safe to say, Liam isn’t the only thing I’m conflicted by.
Pushing upright, I follow her to the kitchen where Aunt Ashley is removing something from the oven. The scent of caramelized sugar and cinnamon hits me, and right on cue, my stomach gives a loud growl.
“Ladies, I needed a challenge.” She grabs some sort of spice from the cabinet and spins to face us, holding a plate of the most delicious looking pastries I’ve ever seen.
“Pasteis de Nata. And you two are my taste testers.”
Mom and I each take one, warm flakes of pastry crumbling onto our fingers. I take a bite and my eyes drift shut. Wow. It’s a perfect blend of creamy sweet with just the right amount of cinnamon.
“Ashley, these are incredible,” Mom says, and there’s something lighter in her voice. Dare I say, happy?
I glance at her, surprised to see her eyes lit up and unguarded.
“You think?” Aunt Ashley beams. “I went back and forth between cinnamon or powdered sugar on top.”
“You made the right call. The cinnamon is perfect.” Mom takes another bite, her eyes closing the same way mine did.
I should say something. Anything to keep the conversation going. But I’m frozen, watching this woman I barely know experience joy for the first time in who knows how long, and I don’t know what to do with that.
With my next bite, it takes everything in me to chew it up and swallow as something bitter rises up my throat.
Why can’t I just be normal with her?
I want more than anything to match her lightness, but there’s this wall between us I can’t seem to scale, built of years where she chose him over us. Years where she couldn’t even pick up the phone.
And I know that’s not fair. I’m an asshole who knows that.
I have a master’s degree in social work, for fuck’s sake.
My college internship was with an organization that focused on domestic violence victims. I sat across from women just like her and held their hands while telling them it wasn’t their fault.
Staying wasn’t weakness, and strength takes a thousand different forms. Staying for them was the only way they knew to survive.
But knowing something intellectually doesn’t make the resentment go away. Why couldn’t she get all three of us out? It was Austin, at the young age of ten, who worked up the nerve to call our aunt and uncle.
I’m ashamed I feel this way. Hate that I can’t let it go and be the daughter she needs me to be right now. But sitting here, watching her happiness over a pastry, all I can think about is the girl who slept in that bedroom full of One Direction posters and needed her mom, receiving silence instead.
Appetite gone, I set my pastry on a napkin.
“Cassie? What’s the verdict?” Aunt Ashley prompts gently.
“Um, yeah, it’s good.” My words come out stilted, flat, and I clock the way Mom’s face falls, a small collapse, her joy dimming. I wish I could reel my words back in. Try again for lightness.
Aunt Ashley glances between Mom and me, and I can see her making a decision. “I just remembered I need to check on the ham. It’s in the garage fridge thawing.” It’s a flimsy excuse, and we all know it.
She wipes her hands on a hand towel and heads toward the garage, pausing long enough to catch my eyes. The message there is loud and clear: Be kind. Then she’s gone and it’s just Mom and me in the kitchen that suddenly feels too small.
Mom picks up her pastry, then sets it back down and fidgets with her napkin, twisting it between her fingers.
The silence is awkward and I know I should say something, but my tongue is frozen, no words forming.
“How’s work?” Mom mercifully asks. “Ashley says you stay busy.”
“It’s fine. Rewarding.” I aim for a smile that I’m sure is this side of dim.
“And Singing River? Do you like it there?”
“I do.” I can hear how clipped my words are. She’s trying, and I’m giving her nothing to work with.
We sit in silence for several agonizingly long seconds before Mom clears her throat.
“I’m glad you came for Christmas,” she says quietly. “Thanksgiving was…hard.”
The acknowledgement catches me off guard and my eyes lift to meet hers. I expected her to keep up the small talk and pretend everything is normal.
“Yeah, it was. Things are still hard.” The honesty slips out before I can think twice about it.
She nods, the tiniest uplift of her head. “Ashley told me I should give you space. She told me you’d talk when you’re ready.” Mom’s waterline fills with tears and she looks back at her napkin. “But I’m afraid you’ll never be ready, and I can’t blame you for that.”
My throat tightens. I can’t imagine what courage it took for her to say that. Reaching over, I clasp her hand in mine. “I want to, Mom. Truly.”
Mom smiles and our eyes meet once more. “I still can’t get over how grown up you are.
It seems like you should still be the little girl who only ate chicken nuggets for a month straight.
Three meals a day.” She releases a short laugh.
“I was so worried, but the pediatrician assured me you’d get tired of them. ”
“I don’t—” I clear my throat, trying to find the right words. “I don’t remember that.”
The admission lands, heavy and sad, while my heart does a painful lurch in my chest. I want to remember. I’d give anything to pull the memory up and say “Oh my god, yes! And didn’t you buy the dinosaur-shaped ones?”
I know the good memories are there. I’ve found them before, pulled them out and held them up to the light.
But sitting here across from her, those aren’t the ones that surface.
What comes instead is the sound of heavy boots on hardwood floor, Austin’s hand gripping mine as he rushed us to his closet.
Lying amongst those, there’s no room for chicken nuggets.
Pressure builds behind my eyes but I blink until it’s gone.
“I don’t really remember much from before,” I say quietly—and I don’t know if I’m sparing her or myself.
She searches my face, possibly sensing the lie but she doesn’t call me out on it. Six-year-olds don’t always remember details from childhood, and then there’s those like me who remember too much of it.
My mind wants to run down that path to the past, but Mom’s voice brings me back to the present. “Maybe we could work to form new memories then?”
“I’d like that,” I manage, a hoarse whisper.
“How about lunch tomorrow? Just us. I’ve been doing some housework for one of Ashley’s friends.
I could take you for an early birthday lunch?
” There’s an uptick at the end like she expects me to decline the invitation.
Being born on Christmas Eve has always meant my birthday was a footnote to the main event.
Even as a kid, I could see how Aunt Ashley and Uncle Brad worked hard to afford two extra kids so I kept my lips zipped when what I really wanted was a party like my friends.
“You remember my birthday?”
Mom’s lips part, face stricken in pain, and I wish I could reverse time to three seconds ago, before I asked that stupid, stupid question. Why do I keep doing this? Ruining moments where we’re making progress. But then Mom’s lips break out into a slow grin. An actual grin.
Lowering her voice conspiratorially, she says, “I’m not sure if you know this, but I was there.”
A laugh slips past my lips at her attempt at humor, and seconds later she’s laughing, too.
This—this is what I’ve craved. A normal moment, mother and daughter laughing together, sitting at a kitchen table with pastry crumbs in front of them.
It gives me a glimmer of hope that one day we might figure out this whole mother daughter thing together.
“So, lunch tomorrow?” Mom asks again, optimism threading through her question.
“Yeah. I’d like that.”
Her shoulders drop in relief. “Okay. This is good.” She stands, smoothing her hands down her jeans. “This is good,” she repeats, as if reassuring herself aloud. “I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing then.”
“Staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling.”
Mom gives a wistful smile. “Austin had those. You were so jealous of them.”
Another memory I don’t have. Another piece of a childhood that only exists in her mind.
“Mom—” I start, but I don’t know how to finish. Thank you for trying? I’m sorry this is so much harder than I expected?
She waits, but when words fail me, she manages a pale shadow of a smile. “It’s okay, sweetheart. You don’t have to say anything.”
Then she’s gone and I’m alone with a half-eaten pastry and a lunch date with my mom.
Back in my bedroom, I collapse onto the bed and without thinking, I open my texts with Liam.
How’s Singing River without me?
Three dots appear almost immediately.
My Favorite Person
Quiet. How’s the family reunion?
Complicated.
My Favorite Person
Wanna talk about it?
Not really. I just wanted to hear from you.
I miss you.
My Favorite Person
I miss you too. More than you know.
I stare at that text for a solid thirty seconds, refusing to read anything into it, then set my phone on my chest to study those glow-in-the-dark stars again.
Stars similar to ones I apparently envied Austin for having, in a house I barely remember, yet remember all too well. It’s a strange feeling.
Tomorrow I’ll have lunch with my mom. We’ll sit across from each other and try to build a bridge. It might be awkward, and odds are I’ll say the wrong things. But she’ll try and I’ll try.
Right now, though, I’m letting myself miss Liam. Even with things so complicated between us, I don’t have to excavate years of trauma just to have a conversation.
And maybe that makes me selfish, choosing to think about the man I’m falling for instead of my mother, who needs my grace. But loving her is hard work, the kind that requires tools I’m still learning to use.
Does that make me a bad daughter? I’m terrified that it does. But it also makes me human.
And right now, that has to be enough.
Ditto