I’ve waited all my life to hear this. Literally, all my life. Even now, when I’m eighteen and old enough that my family should matter less, it still makes my heart beat faster. Still makes me wonder if there’s a chance that everythingcanget better. But then I remember how much time has passed, and I remember that Mel is gone, and Luke and Ro and Sydney. I remember that the pillars of my life for so long have crumbled, and I don’t know if I have the energy to try to rebuild it.
“Just think about it,” Mom says now.
Right in this moment, her eyes don’t have the determination and fervor of Mom 2.0. But neither do they have the sad, vacant look of the mother I’ve known for eighteen years. They look desperate and present and a little bit hopeful. The strangest thing, though, is that they also look the slightest bit familiar. Like the woman in the pictures from when my parents were newlyweds and traveling around the world. They look like someone who’s slowly coming back from the dead.
“Think about it,” Dad echoes, so I promise them I will.
26
When I wakeup the next morning to a ringing phone and see Naomi’s name on my screen, my first reaction is panic. I reach for it, chest tight, and answer.
“Jessi,” Naomi says. “Where do you live?”
“Me?”
“No, the pope,” she says impatiently. “What’s your address? I have something for you.”
“Oh ... um, okay,” I say. I tell her my address, and when she says she’ll be over in half an hour, I climb out of bed and try to make myself presentable.
True to her word, the doorbell rings exactly twenty-nine minutes after she called. My parents are both working today, and my new gig at the community center doesn’t start till next week. Quite frankly, I’m prepared for this week to be a bitch.
What I’m not prepared for is the big brown box Naomi hands me when I answer the door.
“These are for you,” she says in lieu of a greeting. It is reassuring in a strange way to have the curt Naomi back. The one who doesn’t call me honey or give me pitying looks. The one who is too much of a hard-ass to cry even if she’s hurting just as much as I am.
Naomi pushes past me and leads the way into the living room, so I guess this isn’t a quick visit.
The box is taped up, and I set it down on the ottoman in the living room. “Can I open it?”
“I don’t care what you do with it,” she says.
I go to the kitchen and come back with a knife. When I rip the box open, I gasp. It’s full of Mel’s whole musical collection.
“I can’t take this,” I say.
“Why not?”
“It’s Mel’s,” I say.
“Does it look like Mel is enjoying its full benefits at the moment?” she asks. “She told me to give it to you. Don’t make me have to drive around trying to find some place to donate it.”
“I ... okay,” I say. “Thank you.”
Naomi sits on our brand-new gray sofa. She pets it, as if she can tell it’s new. “This is nice.”
“My mom will be happy to hear you said that.”
“How’s she doing?” Naomi asks, surprising me. “Your mom.”
I shrug, remembering the talk we had last night, the things my parents told me that I never knew. “I guess she still has good days and bad days, but mostly she’s doing okay.”
She nods. “Mel was worried about you,” she says.
“Because of my mom?” I ask, wondering if there is a connection to our previous topic.
“Honestly I don’t know why. Maybe because, if she allowed herself to admit it, she’d have seen that you and Luke were acting like a couple of novices in drama school.”
“I ...” I open and shut my mouth. “I don’t know what you mean.”
