“I assumed you did.”
Like she always did. “I’m sorry,” Valerie said. “I can’t.”
“Surely you can help your sister, Val.”
Valerie steeled herself and breathed in through her nose to steady the flutter of her heart. “No,” she said. “Erica has the list of planners I suggested in the first place, and any of them would be suitable. She can call them.” She had done it. She had said no.
“Valerie! I thought I raised you better than this.” Her mother sounded shocked. “Are you serious? Erica needs you.”
Nico was right. Sometimes no wasn’t enough for the situation. She felt an intense desire to try to make her mother understand. “I am. Mom, you never call me unless it’s for Erica. You never talk to me unless you want my help with something.”
“That’s not true,” her mother said immediately. “I texted on your birthday.”
Valerie let that go. “When I told you I was taking a break from Ad Astra, you weren’t supportive. When Erica dropped out of school for a year, you were all sympathy and offers to help.”
“You never wanted my help,” exclaimed her mother. “You only wanted to be there for others, ever since you were a child. You loved it and we could always depend on you to not be a bother.”
The stress of setting up this event smashed Valerie’s usual agreeableness out of the way. She was suddenly furious and ready to let it out. “Because that’s the only way you’d pay attention to me! You were so busy with Erica and Justin that you never checked in with me.”
“Did you say any of this to your father?”
“I’m saying it to you.” Perhaps she would one day. Or not. It might not be fair, but it felt different with her mother.
Her mother sighed. “I’m sorry to hear you think that,” she said.
Valerie waited for something more. “Okay?” she said finally.
“What do you want me to say?” asked her mother. “I did my best.”
Valerie wanted to stamp her feet. “Did you, Mom? That was your best? For me or for your new family?”
“Val,enough. I’ll tell Erica you won’t be able to plan her wedding,” said her mother, her tone conciliatory. “You don’t need to give her a hand. Is that better?”
They hung up, and although Valerie had said what she wanted, she didn’t have the cathartic satisfaction of knowing the other person had heard. That her motherunderstood. Perhaps she never would.
Perhaps it wasn’t her job to help her mother through it after all, and she needed to focus on herself.
She leaned against the wall for a moment, reliving the conversation until her phone alarm chimed softly to indicate it was time for people to say a few words. Right. She had a responsibility to Helena’s family and it was time to compartmentalize and focus.
Valerie went back in and turned off the screen that had been silently showingThe Sound of Music—Helena’s favorite film, since Valerie couldn’t get any family home movies on such short notice—and stopped the complete works of Andrew Lloyd Webber that had been playing softly in the background. Instead of risking the haunting experience of inviting people up to the mic and having no takers, Helena’s daughter had been asked to hand-pick a few people to talk about different aspects of her mother’s life. The rest of the room had been invited to text their stories to a special website Nico had set up or write them down on the slips of paper she’d scattered on all the tables, which would be gatheredup and given to the family to read at their leisure. She gave Helena’s eldest daughter the signal to speak.
“Mom used to say laughter was better than tears,” said her daughter, a middle-aged woman with the same bright blue eyes that shone out from photos of Helena. “She’d be glad that’s how we’re remembering her today.”
Valerie watched the crowd and let the fight with her mother drift away in her delight with how things were going. This was why she loved this kind of work. She loved the stories people were telling and the connections they were making.
This is what Ad Astra, and Valerie, was meant to do.
Thirty
Valerie was in her element, and Nico couldn’t stop watching her. She looked cool and unruffled, but she was everywhere—assessing, deciding, and adjusting.
“Nico?”
He turned to see Gia, the recruiter, standing in front of him. “Gia?”
They both said, “What are you doing here?”
Gia answered first. “Helena was my boyfriend’s stepgrandmother.”
