“Do you love him? Do you want to be with him?” her mom asked.
“Yes. I do.”
“Then be with him if he wants to be with you. The rest can sort itself out later.”
“Uh, Mom. It’s not that simple, is it? I mean, that approach didn’t exactly work with Dad,” Virginia said, which Brooklyn was immensely thankful for. It meant she hadn’t had to bring up the elephant in the room.
“No, it didn’t work,” their mom said, turning off the burner and putting down the wooden spoon she’d been using. “But do you know how many people get divorced? A lot. Do you know how many people walk away from their children? More than you think. None of this is simple. People are complicated, and love is messy, and frankly, it’s a miracle that any marriage survives children.”
“I can’t decide if you’re making a case for any of the things I want to do, or if you’re trying to dissuade me,” Brooklyn said.
Her mother stepped closer to Brooklyn, with a soft smile on her face. “I’m not going to push you toward any decision. I only want you to follow your heart. If you don’t, it’s the one thing you’ll always regret. I followed my heart with your father, and I followed my heart when I had two amazing girls. One part was a miserable failure. The other was the best thing I ever did.”
Virginia and Brooklyn looked at each other and it felt like one of those sisterly mind-meld moments, when words weren’t necessary. She knew what Brooklyn was thinking and vice versa. Virginia wandered over and they wrapped their mom up in a tight embrace. Brooklyn couldn’t hold back the tears. She felt so lost some days, but her mom and sister were a loving constant, always there for her. And it had always been like that, the three of them, for as long as she could remember. It wasn’t perfect, but it was theirs.
“We love you, Mom,” Virginia muttered in a voice that made it obvious that she too was feeling pretty emotional.
“So much,” Brooklyn managed to say.
“I love you, too. Always have. Always will.” Their mom was the first to step out of the group hug. “We should really get back to cooking.”
“No. Hold on one minute,” Brooklyn said. “Mom, Virginia and I have something we need to talk to you about. And we weren’t really planning on bringing it up today because it’s not a done deal, but we’re sort of running out of time.”
Virginia sucked in a deep breath and nodded. “Yes. Mom. Brooklyn and I want to buy Aurora from you. We want to put it under the umbrella of Posh Post. And you can keep running it as long as you want, or you can simply take the cash and duck out. But the big thing is that we want it to stay in the family.”
“Why didn’t you say anything about this before?” their mom asked. “How long have you been sitting on this?”
“Well, we didn’t really know we wanted to do this until after you already had the other offer,” Brooklyn said. “Alec connected us with a woman who’s pulling in investors so we can raise the capital to put together a competing offer. But with the holiday and everything, we aren’t quite there yet with the money.”
“I never expected this.” Their mom leaned back against the countertop and crossed her arms. “How much have you raised?”
“We don’t have a hard number yet. Just a ballpark. So maybe you can tell us what you want,” Virginia said.
“Yes. That could be super helpful,” Brooklyn added. “Is there a number you want to throw at us? A number that would make you happy?”
Their mom looked back and forth between Brooklyn and Virginia. “To sell to you two? No one else would own a piece of it?”
“Right. I mean, we’re bringing in investors, but they’re technically investing in Posh Post so that we can turn that money around and buy you out.”
“Could I work at Posh Post? In the same office? On the same floor with you?”
“Yes. That’s what we were planning. We’ll have to do some reconfiguration to squeeze everyone in until we’re able to move out of the city,” Virginia said.
“There are a lot of moving parts, but yes. We will make it happen. If we can meet your price. So if you want to share it, that would be great.” Brooklyn could hardly believe she was making these concessions to her mom, but so much lately had put this all in perspective. She and Virginia should be doing everything they could to keep their mom close.
A sly smile crossed their mother’s lips, making Brooklyn’s stomach wobble. Was she about to launch a ridiculous number at them? Possibly. “Okay. One.”
Brooklyn narrowed her sights. “One million? That’s super low, Mom.”
“No. One dollar.” Their mother shrugged and turned back to the stovetop, relit the burner and stirred the butter, then swept diced celery and onions into the pan.
Brooklyn and Virginia stared at each other, neither knowing what to say. They inched closer.
“One dollar?” Virginia asked. “Is this a joke?”
“I would never joke about business, darling.” She reached for a pinch of kosher salt and sprinkled it over the sizzling veggies.
“Mom. You’ll sell it to us for one dollar? Now who’s the one who’s sitting on things?” Brooklyn asked.
