Page 23 of In a Word, Yes

“No battery.”

“Rad! Come on, then, Mom,let’s go. I want to try next. Can I?”

A ripple of laughter passes through me. I draw a great big breath and then type my answer.

Slap. Slap. Slap.Three keys hit the paper.

Y-E-S.

And suddenly I can’t be stopped—laughing or typing! Again and again I type the same three letters—Y-E-S Y-E-S Y-E-S Y-E-S Y-E-S—until ...ding!A tiny fairy bell sounds.

And it just might be the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.

Weirdly, what follows is a churning in my belly—a hot, bubbling mixture that feels a lot like sadness or longing. And I realize this sensation has been circulating like magma somewhere deep below the surface for days. Maybe since Mom left.

I miss Nana. I miss family.

“Mom? Can I try now?”

I manufacture a smile for Chase. “Of course. Here, take my seat.” The moment I rise from the chair, my phone vibrates on the end table across the room, where I left it charging.

It’s my mother.

Eight

mulish(adj.): unreasonably and inflexibly obstinate

Carly

“I’m telling you, Lucy,” I say into the speakerphone, “some days I just want to grow out my roots and wear puffy vests and therapeutic shoes like other women my age.”

I almost mean it too. Earlier today my Yvonne emailed a series of social media posts for me to approve. And there was my headshot, the same one that has served me comfortably for the last seven years. Today it stared back at me like a stranger. Like someone from a previous life.

Never would I ever swear on a stack of Bibles, but if I did, I’d swear that about four years ago, some kind of collagen-slurping demon snuck into my bedroom while I slept and sucked every ounce of suppleness out of my face. All of it. Overnight, I kid you not.

I always knew I’d get old, of course. It just never occurred to me that I wouldn’t get a practice run.

Anyway, a person’s headshot should have integrity. Mine islying through her lipstick! How often people who meet me must think to themselves,Holy prunes, Batman, Carly Montgomery looks so much older than I expected. Not that I altogether mind the aging part. It’s a blessing denied many. Most of the time it doesn’t freak me out. After all, everyone else is aging around me. My Roger’s aging. I mean, the man may as well retire the hair gel—his bald spot refuses to be disguised.

All my friends are aging. Aging movie stars keep popping up in my Facebook feed, tucked amid the videos on how to apply eye makeup to drooping eyelids. Those I watch, of course. Every time.

Just think, someday I will never again have to shave my legs. How many times have I performed this drudgery? Newsflash: One would think that when one is postmenopausal, with a grand total of fourteen hairs growing on each leg, those fourteen hairs might do one the kindness of gathering into a single patch. Nope. Still have to shave the whole leg.

No, what freaks me out is worrying that it will freak out my girls. Does it scare them to notice that their mom is whizzing past her prime—at least, as defined by our culture’s skin-deep definition of beauty? Is that why Vanessa keeps sending me new lotions to try, ones made with goat milk from her in-laws’ own herd and heavily infused with ingredients designed to seek out, maim, and destroy any and all free radicals? Are my wrinkles the inspiration for my older daughter’s entire homespun cottage industry?

Okay, that sounds a bit ridiculous, now that I hear myself think it.

“Mom,” Lucy says, drawing me back to the conversation at hand. “I can’t picture you in anything that isn’t flowy and flattering. Well, fitted, maybe. Puffy, never. If Willie Nelson and Ann Taylor had a baby, that’s your style.”

I guffaw. Oh, Lord, the sound of Lucy’s voice goes down like a frosty glass of iced sweet tea on a hot Tennessee day, with a double shot of serotonin added.

“At least until you move back to the Northwest. Then you might have to reconsider puffy.”

“Is Ann Taylor even a real person?” I say.

Wait.Back up. Did Lucy just suggest we move back, closer to her and Chase?

“No clue.”