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Kate knocked on Marahs door, heard a muffled, "Come in. "
She went inside. Trying to ignore the clothes and books and junk scattered everywhere, she picked her way to the white four-poster bed, where Marah sat, knees drawn up, talking on the phone. "Could I talk to you for a minute?"
Marah rolled her eyes. "I gotta go, Gabe. My mom wants to talk to me. Later. " To Kate, she said, "What?"
Kate sat on the edge of the bed, remembering suddenly all the times this very scene had played out in her own teenage years. Her mother had started every reconciliation with a life-is speech.
She smiled at the memory.
"What?"
"I know weve been fighting a lot lately, and Im sorry about that. Most of the time its because I love you and I want the best for you. "
"And the rest of the time, whats it about then?"
"Because youve really pissed me off. "
Marah smiled at that, just a little, and sidled left to make room for Katie, just as Kate had once done for her own mother.
She moved more fully onto the bed and cautiously reached down to hold her daughters hand. There were lots of things she could say right now, conversations she could try to knit out, but instead she just sat there, holding her daughters hand. It was the first quiet, connected moment theyd spent together in years and it filled her with hope. "I love you, Marah," she said finally. "It was you, more than anyone else, who showed me what love could be. When they put you in my arms for the first time . . . " She paused, feeling her throat tighten. Her love for this child was so enormous, so overwhelming. Sometimes in the day-to-day war zone of adolescence, she almost forgot that. She smiled. "Anyway, I was thinking we should do something special together. "
"Like what?"
"Like the anniversary party for Dads show. "
"You mean it?" Marah had been begging for this opportunity for weeks. Kate had repeatedly said she was too young.
"We could go shopping together, get our hair done, get beautiful dresses—"
"I love you," Marah said, hugging her.
She held on to her daughter, reveling in the moment.
"Can I tell Emily?"
Before Kate had even said, "Sure," Marah was reaching for the phone, punching in numbers. As she headed for the door and closed it behind her, she heard Marah said, "Em, you wont believe this. Guess where Im going on Saturday—"
Kate closed the door and went to her own room, thinking about how quickly things changed with kids. One minute you were an old Eskimo woman, floating away from everyone, forgotten; the next you were climbing Mount Rainier, stabbing your flag in the snow. The changes could leave you dizzy sometimes, and the only way to survive was to enjoy the good moments and not dwell too much on the bad.
"Youre smiling," Johnny said when she entered the room. He was sitting up in bed, wearing the drugstore reading glasses hed grudgingly purchased.
"Is that so remarkable?"
"Frankly, yes. "
She laughed. "I guess it is. Marah and I had a bad week. She got invited to an overnight party with boys—I still cant believe it—and I told her she couldnt go. "
"So why the smile?"
"I invited her to the anniversary party. Well make a girls day out of it. Shopping, manicures, haircuts, the works. Well need to get a suite at the hotel, or get a rollaway. "
"Ill be the luckiest guy in the room," he said.
Kate smiled at him, feeling hopeful for the first time in longer than she could remember. She and Marah would have a perfect mother-daughter evening. Maybe it would finally tear down that wall between them.
Tully should have been on top of the world. Tonight was the anniversary party for her show. Dozens of people had been working for months to make it the event of the year in Seattle. Not only were the locals expected to attend, but the RSVPs indicated a celebrity-studded night. In short, everyone who was anyone would be here, and they were coming to honor her, to applaud her phenomenal success.
She glanced around the glittery, traditional ballroom of the Olympic Hotel. Actually, she thought it was called something else these days—chains kept acquiring and selling the property—but to Seattleites, it was and would always be the Olympic.
