She put her gardening supplies away—everything in its place—and paused in her greenhouse. There was the petunia Lexi had given her the night of the dance; it looked leggy and forlorn. She made a mental note to plant it, and then went back into the house. There, she showered and dressed in a pair of low-rise black pants and a fitted white T-shirt. She placed the movies she’d rented on the kitchen counter: Along Came Polly, Starship Troopers 2, and Return of the King.
She was just about to go to the garage for a Coke when the front door banged open.
Footsteps thundered across the wood floors of the great room and thudded up the stairs.
What the hell?
Jude put down her dishrag and walked out of the kitchen.
The front door stood wide open.
Jude closed the door and then went up the stairs. Zach’s door was open; Mia’s was closed.
She paused outside her daughter’s room, heard the unmistakable sound of crying. Sobbing.
“Mia?” she said. At the silence that followed, she opened the door.
Her daughter lay sprawled facedown on her bed, crying into the stuffed pink puppy that had been her favorite childhood toy.
Jude went to the bed. “Hey, Poppet,” she said quietly, using the nickname that had been lost along the way, tucked in somewhere alongside baby teeth and patent leather shoes.
Mia made a howling sound and cried harder.
Jude stroked her daughter’s silky blond hair. “It’s okay, baby,” she said, over and over.
Finally, after what felt like forever, Mia rolled over and looked up at Jude through puffy, bloodshot eyes. Her face was damp with tears, and her mouth trembled unevenly. “H-he … b-broke … up with m-me,” she said, bursting sobs.
Jude climbed up into the big bed beside Mia, who curled up against Jude’s side like one of the potato bugs they used to hunt for.
Her bright, beautiful, almost grown daughter looked like a little kid again, curled up, crying, holding Daisy Doggy as if it were a talisman, and maybe it was. The mementos of one’s past had serious magic.
Mia looked up, tears streaking down her face. “In class,” she added, as if it somehow doubled his crime.
Jude remembered this pain. Every woman had felt some version of it: the end of first love. It was when you learned, for good and always, that love could be impermanent. “I know how much it hurts,” Jude said. “Keith broke up with me the week before senior prom. The week before. He took Karen Abner, and I sat home and watched Saturday Night Live by myself. I cried so much I’m surprised the house didn’t float away.” She remembered that night with clarity. Her mother had come home late, taken one look at Jude and said, Oh, for God’s sake, Judith Anne, you’re a child, and kept walking. Jude looked down at her daughter’s teary face. “A broken heart hurts.” She paused. “And it heals.”
Mia sniffled loudly. “No one else is gonna want me. I’m such a dweeb.”
“Oh, Mia. You haven’t even begun to find out who you really are, and, believe me, other boys are going to fall in love with you. If a guy can’t see how special you are, he isn’t good enough for you.”
“It just hurts so much.”
“It won’t always, though. You won’t always want to puke when you see him with another girl. And then one day you’ll see another guy who makes your heart race and it’ll … just fade. Your heart will stitch itself back up and only a tiny scar will remain behind, and someday you’ll tell your daughter how Tyler Marshall hurt you.”
“I never want to see him again. How can I go to the grad party if he’s there?”
“It doesn’t do any good to hide out in life, Mia. That’s how you used to handle things. You’re stronger now.”
She sighed heavily. “I know. Lexi says I shouldn’t care what anyone thinks.”
“She’s right.”
“Yeah,” Mia said, but she sounded unconvinced.
Jude held her daughter, remembering the whole of their lives in the blink of an eye. “I love you, Poppet.”
“Love you, too, Madre. Can we go get Lexi now? I need her tonight.”
“Of course. That’s what best friends are for.”
*
In less than ten days, they would be graduating from high school.
Lexi stood in a crowd of seniors, staring out at the sea of folding chairs that had been set up in the gymnasium.
Principal Yates stood beneath the basketball hoop, his arms extended, telling them how the ceremony would go, but only a handful of kids were paying attention. The rest of them were laughing and talking and jostling one another.