No one I’d been with in the past had ever traced a highway across a map and pictured me waiting on the other side before.
“Don’t get sappy,” I said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking it.” I grabbed the strap of my duffel and yanked the zipper open. “Anyway, I still have to call my mom before we do anything else.”
Karter didn’t push. He simply gave me a knowing nod, letting that smile stay right where it was, as he stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door mostly shut.
The stripped mattress groaned as I dropped onto it. Cheap coils dug into my thighs. Pressing the phone to my ear, I listened to the line ring.
For the first time in a long while, there was no knot in my gut. No instinct to hang up before she answered. Calling home usually meant bracing for bad news, another bill, another crisis.
But not this time.
“Lekha?” My mother’s voice came through the speaker less than two rings later. A faint buzz of static hissed in the background. “Are you okay? Is it your leg?”
Leaning forward, my free hand rested on my knee. “My leg is fine, Mama. I have news. Good news.”
“Tell me.”
Without rehearsing a speech, I gave her the details. Milwaukee. The affiliate deal. The summer camp.
The line went quiet. A soft sniffle traveled through the speaker. It took me a moment or two to realize she was crying.
My grip tightened on the plastic casing of my phone. “Mama?”
“Bozhe moy,” she whispered. “I’m here,” she said, her voice shaking. “I’m so happy, Lekha.”
Leaning back against the wall, my eyes drifted shut. Memories of all the night shifts she worked at the nursing home surfaced. The heirloom silver she almost pawned for my new gear crossed my mind.
“You did it, Lekha,” she said. “I am so proud of you,moy mal’chik.”
“We did it,” I said.
Her breath hitched. A soft sniffle followed, the kind I knew she often tried to muffle with her hand. Through the phone static, I could picture her standing at the kitchen sink, wiping her eyes with the edge of her sleeve.
“There is something else,” I said. “Someone else.”
She waited. The line hummed.
“Karter. The one I told you about a few weeks ago.”
“You already told me what he did for you, Lekha.” Her voice carried a knowing tone. “You told me everything when you came home.”
“I didn’t tell you absolutely everything.”
A pause stretched across the static. Mama knew when to wait.
“I love him.”
The words came out easier than I’d braced for. There was no tightness in my throat. And I didn’t feel the instinct to snatch the words back.
Mama exhaled, a soft, happy sound that crackled through the cheap speaker. “This boy must have the patience of a saint to put up with you.”
A short laugh scraped out of me. “He does.”
“When can I meet him?”
