Page 144 of Here & There

“Because of you.”

I’m so stunned that, for a moment, I can’t speak. “What?”

“Seeing you and Mac at the restaurant last month. I…I think I never knew what real love was supposed to look like, you see. But when I saw you stand up, together, making all that commotion?—”

I want to roll my eyes even now, but I’m rapt.

“I didn’t know it was you at first. I could only see him. But then he pulled away, and he gave you this stroke on the cheek with his thumb like—” Mom’s breath hitches. “It’s like I used to touch your cheek when you were a baby, you and…and her.”

“Jessica,” I whisper.

Mom nods, her eyes filling fast. She shakes her tears away, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. “Yes. It was like that. Like he couldn’t quite believe that the person before him was real. The feeling of loving something so much you could die, honestly, from the weight of it. More than a person can handle.”

I’m shaking now, my hand trembling as I reach for my water again.

My phone starts to buzz once more, and I pull it out. Mac’s name flashes across the screen. It’s too hard seeing his name there. Too much. I silence the call, then I mute his number. I can’t right now.

When I lower my phone back into my pocket, Mom has composed herself. “Anyway. I knew your father wasn’t the man I hoped he’d be all those years ago. I knew all along, the way he barely seemed to want to be a part of our family. The way he…vanished…when we—when we?—”

“It would help,” I say, “if you said her name.”

Mom’s eyes grow wide.

“You never say her name, like it’s going to make things worse. But nothing can be worse than losing her, Mom.”

Mom blinks. “J?—”

I nod.

“J—”

She can’t get past that sound.

My hand reaches across the table and holds on to hers. It’s cool and soft, but she squeezes me so tightly I can feel my bones crack.

“Jessica,” she whispers. “When we lost Jessica, your father disappeared.”

I remember. “So did you,” I say.

Mom closes her eyes, her chin wobbling so hard her mouth opens and closes, giving her the strange effect of still trying to speak.

I remember it like a terrible, tragic movie playing in my head. Mom wailing behind her closed door. Dad just…gone. His flight information not even printed and stuck on the fridge, because Mom couldn’t do it that time.

The server comes, and Mom pulls herself together with impressive speed, opening her eyes and closing her mouth. She releases my hand to make room for the plates, though she looks down at where they were joined like she’s mourning the loss of us touching.

“Thank you,” we say.

Then we’re alone again.

Mom picks up her spoon, then lowers it. “I didn’t have a good relationship with my mother, Shelby. I—we loved each other, but she was impulsive. After my father died—I was barely in school—she took me on this trip. This absurd trip to the middle of the desert. Morocco. We slept in tents, and she cried herself to sleep and smoked opium and god knows what.”

I’m so agog I haven’t even picked up my fork.

“I think that’s why I thought it was a camel. The llama, you know. When we got back.”

My whole body feels tight.

“That party, that was the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me, Shelby. I just felt very sure that I didn’t deserve the trouble.”

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