“I’m a grown woman,” Momma laughs. “I get to do whatever I want.”
“You have to forgive yourself, Momma,” I say in a quiet voice. Sean’s advice to Patty just a few weeks ago bounces around in my head. My lips pull down as the weight of my own pain and regret tugs them. “And I hope you’ll forgive me, too. Both of you.”
My parents turn to me with equally shocked expressions. “What do we need to forgive you for?”
“I’ve been so judgmental,” I admit, the truth squeezing my lungs. “I thought you resented me for choosing a different path than you guys. I thought you were jealous.”
My mom snorts. “Not even slightly.”
“I am a little,” my dad confesses. “I’m jealous that you have so much more figured out than we did. You’re better with boundaries, more careful with the people you surround yourself with. If we’d had a tour manager like Manny and crew stipulations like yours, things might have gone differently. But I had to leave. Staying on the road might have kept me from ever getting sober. And that’s a risk I couldn’t take.”
“I’d still have retired,” Momma says.
“Really?” June asks. “With a better crew, with a better manager, with longer breaks between concerts?”
“Nothing could have changed it,” Momma says, putting her arm around June. “All I wanted was to stay home with my kids. And I was so tired of apologizing for it. Making excuses for it and feeling like I was less of a woman for it.”
“I get it,” Nora says, her voice gaining an edge. “Because being a mother is a no-win game. Have a career? You’re either an inspiration or a selfish monster who doesn’t love her kids enough. Stay home? You’re either a saint or a failure who’s throwing her life away. Work too much? You’re neglectful. Work too little? You’re unambitious. Homeschool? You’re ruining your kids. Public school? You’re endangering your kids. Private school? You’re raising entitled snobs.
“If you love being a mom, people tell you you’re losing yourself. If you struggle, they say maybe you shouldn’t have had kids at all. And heaven forbid you want something for yourself—then you’re selfish. Then you’re ungrateful.
“And no one ever stops to think that maybe—just maybe—you’re breaking yourself in half, trying to be everything for everyone at once.”
She shakes her head, breath hitching. “So yeah, Mom. I get it. I don’t blame you for choosing. I blame the world for making you feel like you could never win, no matter what.”
My jaw drops like a mic.
My mom grabs my sister and pulls her into a fierce hug while June and I stare at each other.
“I had no idea it was like that,” I say.
Tears of righteous indignation shine in Nora’s eyes when she and Mom release. “That’s because you don’t have to know it. Everyone acts like you have to know everything the moment you arrive. The second you’re in high school, you’re supposed to know what college you’re going to. The second you’re in college, you need to have your degree and future job picked out. They act like the moment you’re seriously dating or even married, youhave to know if you want kids and how many, if you want a career, how many hours you’ll work. If you want a hobby, how are you going to turn it into a side hustle?
“But it’s a lie. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You just have to care enough about your future self to remembershe’sthe one who’ll live with the consequences of the choices you make now.”
“Someone get a time machine and tell that to my tattoos,” Dad says.
We all bust out laughing, and June reaches for his sleeve, trying to get him to show us the dragon tattoo he got when he was eighteen. Well, wrinkled lizard, really.
It has not aged well.
“I love you guys,” I say, smiling at my family. “Thanks for being here.”
Everyone smiles back. My dad slings an arm around me and kisses my forehead.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
After a few more minutes of mingling, Patty still hasn’t come. It’s been fifteen minutes, maybe longer.
I go over to Sean and his dad, Danny, and give them both hugs.
“Hey, I’m so glad you could both make it. Was the flight okay, Mr. O’Shannan?”
“It’s Danny,” he tells me, looking up from his wheelchair.
Patty told me that his arm braces are getting harder and harder for him to use, and I swallow, thinking of the painful surgery he’ll have so soon.
“And it was fine,” he continues. “We’re excited to be here.”
