20. Professional Mom Opinion
PROFESSIONAL MOM OPINION
REESE
“Mom?” I call out as I walk into her house.
“Kitchen!”
I head back to find her standing at the island, slicing strawberries into a bowl. Her Boston Terrier, Spark, is circling my ankles as though I may have brought contraband treats.
Mom points the paring knife at me, narrowing her eyes. “Your smile is different.”
“What? Mom, I’ve been here less than thirty seconds.”
“Yes, but I raised you. I can tell.”
I drop my purse onto one of the stools and bend down to scratch Spark behind the ears. “Maybe I’m just happy to see you.”
Mom gives me a look. Spark gives me a look, too.
I straighten. “Wow. Hostile audience.”
“Reese.”
There’s way too much anticipation in the way she says my name. I should’ve prepared better for this conversation. Maybe started with something distracting. Asked about work. Complimented her strawberries. Brought up a neighborhood scandal involving an improperly placed recycling bin.
Instead, I came over with Kissed Miles Lancaster apparently written across my forehead.
I slide onto a stool. “Miles and I went on a date.”
My mom freezes, the knife stopping halfway through a strawberry. “A real date?”
“I don’t know what your definition of a fake date is, but he brought me flowers, cleaned his car, and planned activities.”
Her mouth drops open.
I just look at her for a moment. “Uh, Mom, that reaction feels excessive.”
“You and Miles went on a date.” She says it slower this time. As if she needed it repeated again just to convince herself it is true. “I wondered if things were heading that direction when you said he told you about the CSA, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up. When?”
“Saturday.”
“Saturday?” Her voice rises enough that Spark looks up. “And you’re just now telling me?”
“I’ve been busy.”
“It’s Tuesday.”
“I had things.”
“What things?”
I consider that for a moment. “Kissing him.”
The strawberry falls out of Mom’s hand and lands on the cutting board with a soft splat. For two full seconds, she does nothing. Then she lets out a sound that is alarmingly close to a squeal, sets down the knife, wipes her hands on a dish towel, and comes around the island to give me a hug.
“Mom.”
“Sorry. I’m just a little excited. That’s all.”
“You squealed loudly enough to concern the dog.”
Spark has moved to the opposite side of the island and is watching Mom carefully.
“How was it?”
“The date or the kiss?”
“Yes.”
I laugh despite myself. “The date was a disaster. It was amazing.”
“That… clears up nothing.”
“I may have accidentally kicked him in the jaw and given him a pretty bad bruise. Oh, and a beagle named Winston thinks Miles communes with ghosts. It was honestly one of the best nights I’ve ever had.”
She shakes her head. “I’m not even going to ask.” But she’s wearing that expression she sometimes wears that says she knows something I don’t.
“What?”
“It’s nothing. I’m just happy for you.”
“Normal happy or the terrifying kind where you’ve secretly been planning our wedding for four years?”
“Five.” When I stare at her, she bursts out laughing. “I’m kidding.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“I have not planned your wedding.”
“Good.”
“I may have occasionally wondered whether I would someday be planning your wedding, though.”
I groan and drop my forehead onto my folded arms.
Mom pats the top of my head. “Honey, you cannot expect me to have spent that much time around Miles Lancaster without noticing the way he looks at you.”
I lift my head. “Apparently, everyone noticed except me.”
“That sounds about right. And now that I know him better…” She smiles. “I like him even more.”
Before Hammy, Mom knew Miles mostly as my best friend—the charming Lancaster brother who showed up for family things and could make conversation with anyone.
Now she knows the Lancaster family. Evelyn.
Jace. Mackenzie. Ledger and Zoe. Charlie and Owen.
She has spent holidays and dinners and random weekends around all of them.
She knows the family behind Miles in a way she didn’t before.
And she knows what Miles really does for a living. Which still occasionally breaks my brain.
Mom leans against the island. “So…” she prods, “the kiss.”
I feel heat creep into my cheeks.
She gasps dramatically. “You’re blushing.”
“I am not.”
“How was it?”
I try to glare at her and fail. Because apparently remembering kissing Miles makes my face stop accepting instructions. “It was…” I look down at the strawberries. “Really good.”
Mom makes another tiny squealing noise. “Sorry.”
“You are not.”
“Not even a little.”
I laugh, but it comes out softer than I expect. Because the truth is, I’ve been replaying it all day. The way Miles looked at me when I opened the door.
The way he said, I am going to kiss you now.
The pause before he did it. His hand against my cheek. The way nothing about being with him stopped feeling familiar, even while everything felt completely new.
My mom has gone back to slicing strawberries, but she’s watching my face.
“It feels real.”
She goes very still, but her eyes have lit up.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your entire face said something.”
“My daughter just said it feels real with Miles Lancaster. Allow me one facial expression.”
“I regret telling you anything.”
“No, you don’t.”
I smile despite myself. Then the smile fades.
“What is it?”
I look down at my hands. This is why I came. Not to report on the date. Not to let Mom interrogate me about kissing Miles. Those were only the easy things I put in front of the hard one. “I have to tell him.”
Her gaze drops briefly to my hands before returning to my face. “Oh, honey.”
“He knows about the cancer,” I say quickly.
“I’ve told him things about it before. Not all at once or anything.
He knows I had Hodgkin lymphoma. He knows about chemo and radiation.
He knows I spent a ridiculous amount of time in the hospital when I was fifteen.
But he doesn’t know what the treatment may have done. ”
I shake my head. Spark nudges against my leg, and I reach down automatically to rub her head. “It’s something I try not to think about, so it never came up. I never needed to tell him.”
My mom pulls out the stool beside mine and sits.
“I mean, I could have. We tell each other almost everything. But this was…” I shrug. “Different.”
“And painful.”
I look at her. She knows. Of course she knows. She was there when the doctors explained it. She was there when I was fifteen and too busy being relieved that the cancer was gone to fully understand why everyone in the room suddenly looked so sad when the conversation shifted to fertility.
She was there later, when it really did sink in. I trace one finger along a seam in the countertop. “It didn’t matter before.”
Mom doesn’t say anything.
“But now he’s told me he loves me. He’s apparently loved me for years. We’re dating. We’ve kissed.” I swallow. “This is becoming something.”
“It sounds like it already is.”
“Exactly.”
I exhale and drop my forehead into my hands. “I don’t know how to tell him.”
“You tell him the truth.”
“Not helpful, Mom.”
“I’m contractually obligated to start with the obvious.” I lower my hands, and she gives me a small smile. “Which part scares you most?”
I laugh once, but there’s no humor in it. “The part where I tell the man who has always wanted kids that I probably can’t have them.”
Her face softens.
“He loves kids. You should see him with Heidi.”
“I have.”
“And Mackenzie’s baby. He was ridiculously excited when she got pregnant. All the Lancasters were.”
“Reese—”
“He wants a family.”
“He wants children. That isn’t the same thing as saying there’s only one future that would make him happy.”
“If he’s loved me for years, that means for years he’s pictured a future with me without knowing one really big thing.”
“Or,” Mom says, “he pictured you.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do. But I think you need to hear the difference.”
I hate when my mother says something reasonable while I’m trying to catastrophize.
“I’m not saying this won’t matter to him,” she continues. “It might. Wanting biological children is a real thing. You shouldn’t pretend it isn’t.”
“That is somehow both comforting and not comforting at all.”
“Only Miles gets to say how he feels about something.”
I pick at the edge of my thumbnail. “I already know what he wants.”
“You know what he has said he wants.”
“That sounds like the same thing.”
“It isn’t always.”
I sigh. Then I say the part I hadn’t planned to say. “And it isn’t just that.” Her eyes stay on mine, and I wish I could take the sentence back. Instead, more comes out. “You know what I’m like.”
“Yes. You’re my daughter. I have twenty-five years of data.”
“I forget things constantly. I lose everything. I get overwhelmed and scatterbrained, and I make things harder than they need to be. Miles already remembers things for me. He finds things. He keeps track of things I forget.”
Mom starts to speak, but I keep going.
“Maybe that’s funny now. Maybe it’s cute when I leave my phone in the refrigerator or forget I put my sunglasses on top of my head or have to turn around because I left something at school.”
“Honey—”
“But what happens when it’s not funny anymore?”
She goes quiet.
I stare at the countertop. “What happens when we’ve been together ten years, and it’s his plans I mess up? His important thing I forget? When he’s tired of always being the responsible one?”
“That’s what you think will happen?”
“I think it could.”
“And not being able to have kids feels like the biggest proof of all.”
I swallow.
“It doesn’t prove anything.”
“It kind of does.”
“How?”
“Because even if he never gets tired of everything else, there’s this huge thing he might have to give up if he chooses me.”
My mom studies me for a long moment. Then she says, “You’re making a list of every way loving you might cost Miles something.”
My chest tightens. “I’m being realistic.”
“I think you believe you are.”
“Mom.”
She reaches over and covers one of my hands with hers. “You’ve been doing this for a long time—keeping track of what loving you costs people.”