My heart pinched.
So I was right about how little thought they’d put into it.
“I used to have a complex about my name,” Mom said now. “Katherine.”
“But it’s so ... basic,” I said.
Mom smiled. “Exactly. I can’t tell you how many girls I went to school with who had the same name. Over the years I was Kate, Katie, Kitkat, Katherine I., and Kathy, all so people could tell us apart. I swore for years that if I ever had a daughter, I’d name her something unique, but not outlandish. Nothing like Tulip or Daffodil.” Mom snorted now. “God, I went to college with a girl named Wisteria.”
“So basically no flower names?” I said, and Mom laughed again, the sound full and warm. It felt like sitting in the sunshine, feeling the rays of light hit my skin.
“Your father and I took so long to decide when we had you. He really wanted Jessica, but I wouldn’t have it. Too common. So we compromised. Went with something simple. Jessi, first of her name, short for nothing.”
“I always thought you ... that you kind of phoned it in,” I admitted.
She gave me a weird look. “No, not at all.”
We went back to working in silence, and I wondered if I’d angered or hurt her. I was still chiding myself for ruining the moment when she asked, “Who were you with tonight? Melanie?”
“Luke,” I said. Then, feeling brave, I added, “We’re dating.”
Mom turned to me. “Luke? Really?”
“Why are you so surprised?” I sounded defensive, but I couldn’t help it.
“I just thought you and Rowan were ... closer,” she said at last. Even though I shouldn’t have, I thought then how different Mom was from Mel—Mel who had known for years about my crush on Luke and Mom who knew so little about me. I thought too of that night last summer when I’d snuck into her room and confessed about my crush on Luke. I’d secretly hoped for months after that she’d randomly bring it up, that somehow she’d heard me and remembered everything I told her, but she never did.
“Well, you have to tell me about him,” she said as she closed the door of the fridge.
“Okay,” I said. She got us glasses and filled them with milk, and we sat at the kitchen table and talked. It was kind of everything I’d dreamed of, everything our first conversation about Luke hadn’t been. For one thing, it wasn’t one-sided. I told Mom about what Luke was studying in college and how he’d come down last weekend and told me he liked me. She listened and asked questions, and the whole time I was thinking,So this is what it would have been like to have my mother in my life.
When we finally went to bed about an hour later, I couldn’t believe how well this had gone. I was itching to tell someone.
I picked up my phone to send a text, then hesitated. Should I text Ro or Luke? For the past ten years of my life, it would have been a no-brainer. Ro was my person, but in just a few weeks, everything had changed.
Just had a really good talk with my mom.
It was past midnight, and I wasn’t surprised when Luke didn’t text back.
Still, I went to bed feeling light and floaty, excited, like things were finally changing.
But when I woke up the next morning, my father was alone at the dining table, looking somber.
“Where’s Mom?” I asked.
“Asleep. She had a rough night.”
It felt like an arrow to the heart.
“What do you mean?”
“She didn’t get to bed till late, so she’s exhausted,” he said.
“Oh,” I said, and went into the kitchen to get breakfast.
I didn’t tell my father that we’d been up together, talking. I didn’t tell him about the hope I’d felt, that quiet soaring feeling of possibility.
Maybe things were changing. Maybe we were at the start of a million more conversations full of long-held truths and midnight secrets.
