Page 4 of Here & There

Mom’s face is slack. Dad’s is disapproving.

“I reserved the grand suite here for you,” I say, my voice wavering as I take in her stony expression. “All the rooms, actually. You can have your pick. Richard and I will take whatever you don’t want. We have the reservation until tomorrow at eleven. There are muffins…”

I glance over at my boyfriend for moral support.

But he’s on his phone.

“Richard?” I say. I expected this could go one of many ways with my parents. But Richard? Was it absurd to think I might get unconditional support?

My fingernails dig into my palms. I told him about this plan. But maybe he wasn’t really listening.

He never listens.

“Richard!” I snap.

Richard lowers his phone, looking at me with alarm. Then he takes in the scene around him.

And cringes.

“Oh,” he says. “This is…interesting.”

“Interesting?” My voice hits a note that can only be described as squeaky.

“Bryony,” Dad says. “Calm down.”

I drag my eyes back to Mom, my chest constricting. Fine, maybe Richard and Dad think it’s absurd. But it doesn’t matter. This is for Mom. And when I meet her eyes, they’re wet.

My heart clenches. Oh God. I did it. I touched her.

But when her chin wobbles, panic hits. They’re not happy tears.

When my mom cries like this, it strikes that old, raw part of me, that memory of a time when all she did was cry. When we were thirteen, and Dad vanished into work, and I was left to be her sole comfort with a gaping hole by my side.

What the hell was I thinking? This is going exactly the way the nagging voice in my head warned me it would.

I ignored that voice. I pushed through with this plan because I knew my life was at a breaking point. I’m burning out, and I guess, pathetically, I needed my mom back.

I should stop while I’m ahead.

But I don’t. Because that other voice, the one that screams there’s more to life than this, the one that had me put together this cockamamie plan even knowing my mom would probably freak out, is louder right now.

I reach into my pocket, pulling out the coup de grâce.

Or the worst idea I’ve ever had.

It’s a necklace. A simple thing. A gold chain with a pendant made of glass. But when I found the broken piece of it in that box four months ago, I knew exactly what it was.

I have exactly one photo of Mom’s mom. In it, Grandma presses her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. They’re bothsmiling. Grandma has the same hair as me—the same shade, the same little wave to it. A slightly crooked smile, just like mine.

You remind her of her mother,Dad once said to me. It was clear it wasn’t in a good way.

Grandma was a free spirit.

And in the picture, she wore a little blue camel on a leather cord. The same camel I hold out on my palm now.

“I think she wore this for you, Mom. Because of the camel llama thing. The pendant, it was broken, but I had it remade and reset…”

But I trail off. Because Mom doesn’t pick up the necklace. She doesn’t even look at it. All she does is folds her arms, leaving me holding the thing out like a fool.

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