"You're crying."
"I'm not crying." She absolutely was crying, two neat tracks that she was pretending weren't there. "I'm just—" She looked at me and gave up on the pretense entirely. "I just want you to be happy, mija. That's all I've ever wanted."
I went down the last two stairs and hugged her and she held on hard, the way she'd held on in the clinic waiting room when I'd had my tonsils out at eight years old, the way she'd held on when I left for my first apartment, the specific hold of a woman who knew she was letting go and was doing it anyway because she loved me enough to.
"I'm going to be happy," I said into her shoulder. "I really think I am."
She pulled back and held my face in both hands and looked at me for a long moment, cataloguing me, taking the picture she'd take every time. Then she wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist and straightened up.
"Okay," she said. "Okay."
Gage had come to stand a few feet away with the quiet tact of a man who understood when to give people space. My mom looked at him over my shoulder and something shifted in her expression—the last of the worry giving way to something more like decision.
She stepped toward him.
"You'll have us up," she said. It wasn't quite a question.
Gage looked at her steadily. "As soon as you want," he said. "The ranch is easy to find. I'll send you directions. There's plenty of room." A pause. "My mother would like to meet you. She's been asking."
My mom blinked. "Your mother."
“Peggy. She lives in town but she's out at the ranch most days." Something shifted near his eyes. "She keeps goats. She'll want to show you."
My mom looked at me.
I looked at her.
Something passed between us that didn't need words—the specific frequency of a mother and daughter who had been communicating in that language for twenty-six years. What she was saying was:a family. Mija, he's bringing you into a family.
What I was saying back was:I know. I know.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her this family was being built on a legal arrangement, not on love.
"We'll come soon," she said to Gage. "Next weekend, if that's not too?—"
"Next weekend is fine," he said.
My dad put his hand out and Gage took it again and they shook a second time, the kind of handshake that meant something different than the first one had. My dad looked him in the eye and said, low, "She means everything to us."
"I understand that," Gage said.
My dad held on for one more second. Then he let go and nodded and stepped back and put his arm around my mom and they stood together in the parking lot in the June heat watching me go, the way parents do, the way they always do, like they're memorizing it.
Daniela hugged me hard and fast. "Text me when you get there," she said. "Text me tonight. Text me when Dolly does something."
"You'll be the first to know about Dolly," I said.
She laughed and let go and I picked up my bag and walked to the truck and got in and the AC hit my face like a gift from God.
Gage got in beside me. Sawyer pulled up behind us with the trailer. I put my seatbelt on and looked in the side mirror atmy parents standing in the parking lot, my mom already tucked under my dad's arm, both of them watching.
My mom raised her hand.
I raised mine back.
Then Gage put the truck in drive, and we left.
FOUR
