Page 181 of Under Story

After breakfast, Eli arrives with Maisie and Noah and Riordan and Jules. Pete retrieves a collection of sleds, as well as an ancient toboggan. The teens whiz from Upper Orchard to Lower, snow sparkling, wind in their ears. In the afternoon, Clare makes hot cocoa, and they pile on the sofa to watch Titanic.

That night, Laurel brings her third slice of birthday cake to the attic. For the moment, at least, thankfulness has replaced her self-pity. Getting younger still frightens her, but she won’t have to do it alone. Maybe catastrophizing is like freezing a photon in flight: if you fixate on one outcome, all of the others collapse. That’s what fear does, she thinks. It makes you pick a story. If she stays open, the future might hold everything at once.

Clare has set an envelope on Laurel’s pillow. Beside it, a Post-it reads: Found this in the mailbox. Laurel removes a mushroom sticker and slides her finger under the flap.

Dear Laurel,

You’re sixteen today, but you’ve been on my mind all month. Little things bring you up: finding morels in the arboretum, or working at the Rhizotron. I miss you here. I wish you’d visit. Sometimes I worry that you think I’ve forgotten you, or even that you want me to. I don’t know what it’s like to be your age, but there’s no one who means more to me.

I’ve moved into the house, at long last! You wouldn’t believe how much work we had to do. Bats were living in the attic, and the air ducts were filled with Aspergillus. (I asked to sample it, but the mold specialist wouldn’t let me.) I refinished the floors on my own, and my boyfriend caulked the windows, but I hired someone to repair the roof and the plumbing. I can’t believe I can pay for things like that. Now that it’s in better shape, I’ve started decorating—I picked the bedroom upstairs for myself and turned the downstairs one into a guest wing.

I hope your birthday has included a surprise or two. Can I take you out for falafel next week?

Love,

Gloria

Laurel sets the card aside and folds her hands over her stomach. During her time at the Center, she and Gloria kept in touch through letters. Every so often, Gloria visited, and Laurel sent her home with a tote bag of balms and tinctures. But when Laurel returned to Madison, the difference between them felt stark. Gloria was entering the prime of her career, and Laurel had moved back in with her parents. She didn’t want to be a burden. Gloria invited her to the Rhizotron, but Laurel felt self-conscious on campus; it reminded her of what lay behind her—and ahead.

Wind rattles the windowpanes. Laurel turns out her reading light and settles under the covers. But a detail from the letter nags at her: the mention of Gloria’s guest wing.

Gloria Two purchased the same house as Gloria One. Laurel remembers the guest wing, which was where Gloria slept after her arthritis progressed. But the phrase itself rings a bell, too. After Laurel and her friends dreamed of the neutrino detector, wing and guest were two of the words they assembled. They discarded the phrase, which seemed nonsensical, without much consideration. But it isn’t nonsensical, she thinks—not when you reverse it.

Laurel rises to a seat as if tugged by a hook. She knows that pull by now, and she knows who it comes from.

—

Laurel walks downstairs in her pajamas. Quietly she lifts the receiver of the landline in the kitchen.

“Gloria?” she whispers. “Can I come over?”

“Did something happen?” Gloria asks.

Laurel can hear the concern in her voice. It’s not that something happened, she explains, but that she hopes something might.

—

Laurel pages Eli. Then she climbs back upstairs, to her parents’ room.

Pete is sleeping soundly, his head turned to one side. Laurel scans the things he loves: his bluegrass CDs and books on fruit growing, his pictures of her and Clare. She kisses his cheek, taking in his particular smell. After that, she walks to the other side of the bed.

“Mom?” Laurel whispers, sitting.

Clare tussles with sleep, trying to surface.

“It’s okay,” says Laurel. “You don’t have to wake up. I just have to tell you two things.”

Clare’s eyes open slowly. With Laurel seated and Clare lying down, they are both parent, both child.

“What is it, my dear?” Clare asks.

“Well, the first thing is that I’m sorry. I know I haven’t been easy lately.”

Clare smiles. “I’m sure I didn’t make it easy on you, either, in the beginning.”

Laurel takes Clare’s hand and squeezes. “The second thing is that I love you.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” says Clare, squeezing back. “I know you do.”