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Dear Ms. Lake
We have not yet heard from you regarding your acceptance of our offer to study at Tanglewood University. However, upon further review of your academic credentials, as well as new reference letters we have received from several of your teachers at Noland High, we would like to extend an additional offer to you.
We can offer you a partial scholarship to Tanglewood which will cover 50% of all your tuition costs, as well as provide a $1000 per semester stipend for books, living expenses and any additional supplies.
In addition, we would offer you placement in our freshman year dormitory. If this offer is acceptable, please call our admissions office at…
Sincerely signed by Chancellor Alistair Kross, and a bunch of phone numbers for different questions. My eyes have blurred by now, half from sheer exhaustion and half from the tears that suddenly fill my eyes so much I can hardly squint through them.
Oh my God. “Oh my God.” I don’t realize I’m shouting until I hear a disgruntled thumping and groaning upstairs, and Mom’s voice floating down the steps.
“Honey? Is that you?”
“Mom!” I shout, before I think better of it—before I remember what time it is, and the fact that Mom will have been up late at her own job, working behind the counter of the gas station down the road. That, coupled with how tired she gets lately, whenever her autoimmune deficiency is acting up, well… I should know better. But I’m too excited.
I fly upstairs, taking the steps two at a time, and burst through her bedroom door, unable to contain it. “Mom! I can go!” I’m waving the letter like some kind of flag, and she’s staring at me, bleary-eyed and half awake.
“You’re going to wake the whole neighborhood,” she grumbles. “Go where, Missy, what are you talking about?”
“Look!” I shove the letter under her nose, too excited to explain it. I might also be reaching that point of exhaustion where I’m giddy from lack of sleep. It’s the closest to feeling drunk I’ve ever been. Despite working in a bar nearly every night—or maybe because of that, because I see how hard alcohol hits people, and all the crazy shit it makes people do under its influence—I rarely drink. The few times I have, I’ve never had more than one drink, and all it did was give me a slight buzz.
I imagine, though, if I did get drunk, it would feel like this high right now.
Mom reads, still squinting. Then she gropes around on her night stand for her reading glasses, shoves them onto her face, and takes another pass, slowly rising from the pillows she’s leaning against while she does.
As for me, I’m actually bouncing now, up onto my toes and back down again in a steady rhythm, unable to tear my eyes from her face.
“Is this…” Mom glances from the letter to me and back again. Her jaw actually drops, the way I’ve only ever seen in movies. “Oh, sweetie. Missy, is this legitimate?”
I nod, my throat too tight to say anything else.
“Oh, my goodness. Honey, I’m so proud of you.” She opens her arms, and I fling myself into them with another squeal.
“I can’t believe it.” I’m crying, I realize with embarrassment. I can’t remember the last time I cried. Definitely not in years.
Mom hugs me so tightly that I gasp for air, but I don’t mind. A moment later, we hear a shuffle, and a knock at the door.
“What’s going on?” Jake rubs sleep from his eyes, watching the two of us like we’ve lost our minds.
“Get in here!” I yell, beckoning my little brother over, while my mother laughs and struggles to sit up. I’m so happy that even the sight of her slowing down this morning doesn’t faze me. Nothing can, right now.
I lose track of time, hugging, shouting. My brother insists on looking up the Tanglewood University anthem, and blasts it from his phone while he and I dance across our mother’s bed. It’s the highest I’ve ever felt in my entire life.
But the thing I’ll remember most from that morning is later. After the highs wear off, and Mom drags herself out of bed to make us pancakes. “A celebratory breakfast,” she insists. She waits until Jake runs back upstairs to change out of his pajamas, before she takes my hand and squeezes it tightly, to get my attention.
“I want to give you some advice, honey.” Her gaze searches mine, uncharacteristically serious. We have the same wide set blue eyes, she and I. Right now, they look more narrowed than I’ve ever seen them.
“Mom, the rest of the tuition… I can save up for it,” I say. “I’ll take out loans; I’ll make it work.” I’d been planning on that anyway. “And I can keep working part-time while I go.”
