“I know,” she crooned, “There’s only a couple more hours. I got someone to cover me.”
My eyebrows flew up. Two meals together in one day? Whatever had shifted between us, I was nervous to hope that it stuck around.
She held up a finger and hurried off to her bedroom, exchanging her uniform for a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. We ate hunched over the coffee table.Hope Floatsplayed on the television—one of my mother’s favorite movies, she told me when she held up the DVD. Truthfully, I didn’t care what was on the screen.
It should’ve been natural to sit for dinner and a movie with my mother, but the heaviness that simmered around us said otherwise. Usually, I’d avoid the paradoxical unease of unfamiliarity—but today wasn’t like any other day. An invisible tether, brand new but shining, urged me to stay this time.
I hugged my knees to my chest, tea long forgotten as I nursed a chocolate milkshake. Her eyes were glassy as she watched Sandra Bullock and Harry Connick Jr. sway beneath a ceiling of string lights.
The day’s events must’ve made me loopy, because I found myself quietly asking, “Did you ever want to re-marry?”
She waited for the scene to end before speaking. “It wasn’t really on my mind,” she said. “Not much was. If I just focused on gettin’ out of bed each mornin’, puttin’ on that uniform, and gettin’ myself to the diner, I knew I’d be okay for the day. Wash, rinse, n’ repeat.”
“For how many years?” I murmured.
She shrugged. “Some days it’s still hard. Others, I feel a bit like my old self again.” Pausing, she laughed to herself and waved a hand. “You must think I’m crazy.”
“No,” I replied, choosing my next words carefully: “But do you think you might be depressed?”
She folded a napkin in her lap and placed it neatly on the takeout box. “I dunno ‘bout all that.”
“I can give you my therapist’s information,” I blurted before I could stop myself. “She’s really great, and… I think she could help.”
I waited for her to dismiss me with another laugh and a smile. She surprised me, though. After a long, tired sigh, she nodded and replied, “That would be nice, darlin’.”
A grin twitched onto my mouth as we both sank back into the couch. While the movie swelled to an end, my eyes drifted to my laptop on the table, stomach twisting ever so slightly. I knew just how much a session with Candice cost. It dawned on me with stunning clarity: now, more than ever, I had a good reason to get back up again and try to publish my book.
If I committed to footing the bill, I needed to be a best-seller. So, that’s what I was going to be.
???
I was editing in my bedroom later that night when the scrape sounded. Loud, as if it was inside the room. Heart in my throat, I jumped from the bed, wielding my laptop in the dark like some sort of rectangular, highly ineffectual sword.
It came again. I whipped my head toward the window, stubbing my toe on the bedframe and hissing as I strained for a look down into the alley.
No cute family of raccoons throwing trash at the glass.
Just Teddy, lopsided grin on his face and a handful of pebbles at his side. His hair, neater than usual, glowed in the bright floodlight. I momentarily considered ignoring him. Then that pesky, glowing ember lit up in my chest, urging me to slide the window open.
“What do youwant?” I whisper-shouted at him.
“Come down,” was all he said.
“Not until you answer my question.”
Even from the second floor, I could see his raised eyebrow. “I have about twenty more pebbles. And I think there’s plenty more at the beach.”
I groaned. He held up a hand, as if preparing to throw.
“Okay, okay!” I relented. The window squealed as I shut it.
I spun around my room for a moment, half panic, half indignation. It was just like Teddy to show up out of nowhere, leaving me no time to do my hair or my makeup or make myself look even mildly presentable. Muttering beneath my breath, I pulled on a pair of comfortable, fur-lined boots, and oversized sweater I’d gotten while thrifting with Georgie, and hastily wrenched a brush through my hair.
It didn’t occur to me that a grease stain from dinner graced the right knee of my sweat pants until I hurtled halfway out the door into the alley.
Teddy just smiled at me, wide and true, and for a second I thought he’d hug me.
“You can’t laugh,” I muttered, adjusting my sweater.
