* * *
Law and Jonathan are long gone by the time I drag myself out of bed and stumble down the stairs in the morning, but there’s no way I can avoid Mom. No doubt, she’ll be waiting in the kitchen for me, and I get ready as slowly as I can without making myself late. I pull my hair into a high knot and throw on clothes that are already paint-splattered and worn. By the end of the day I’ll be a disaster, covered in smears of oil pastels and glitter glue if I’m not careful. I have the best summer job in all of Jericho—assistant to the Arts and Crafts Director at the community center—but it’s definitely not clean.
I skip down the steps two at a time, planning to eat on the run. But Mom is leaning against the kitchen sink, waiting for me, it seems. She’s not going to let me slip away so easily this time.
“Hey,” she says, peering at me over a mug of tea.
“Hey.” I can’t exactly back out of the room now, even though I’m still not ready to face her. “About the other day…”
Mom sighs. “Juniper Grace, you’re an adult. I’m not going to yell at you about grad night.”
“You’re not?”
“I don’t want you to make bad decisions, but you’re a good girl, June. Everyone is allowed a mistake from time to time.”
I’m all set to argue with her—to remind her that I’m responsible and a straight-A student and not the kind of girl who makes a habit of getting drunk—but then she smiles at me over the rim of her mug and I realize she’s already forgiven me.
“I thought you were mad. I’ve been avoiding you.” I pull out a stool at the island and Mom comes over to lift a loaf of bread out of the basket on the counter. When Jonathan and I were little, she used to make something different and wonderful for breakfast every morning. Pancakes and waffles, omelets with fresh eggs we gathered from the small coop out back, lots of thick, crispy bacon. I didn’t really appreciate it when I was a kid, the way Mom served us. I thought it was our right as her children, but I can see it now as something much different. An offering, maybe. A kind of tangible provision. Love.
“You don’t have to make me breakfast,” I say, but she’s already slathering salted butter on a thick hunk of bread and reaching for the raspberry jam. In a few more seconds she slides the plate to me, open-faced sandwich cut in two triangles just the way I like it. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. There’s a bag in the fridge with your lunch.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say around a mouthful, but she waves me off.
“It’s just leftovers. Don’t get too excited.”
I eat in silence for a few moments, and Mom just watches me. I can feel her gaze, but it’s a soft touch, a caress. It hits me that I’ll miss these moments with her when I’m gone.
“You wanted to talk to me about something?” I ask when I’m down to my last few bites. Mom needs to be prompted sometimes, to be encouraged to articulate the thoughts that whir so quickly, so quietly behind her dark eyes. And a hasty glance at the clock on the wall behind her tells me I don’t have much time.
“I did?”
“You came into the bathroom the other day when I was showering,” I remind her. “I thought you were going to yell at me about grad night.”
“Oh.” She waves her hand. “I don’t remember. It must not have been a big deal.”
I get up from the counter and rinse my plate at the sink before sticking it in the dishwasher. The air in our home hasn’t been clear for days （weeks?）， and I feel like Mom knows it. I just can’t understand why she won’t talk to me about it.
“You okay?” I give her my full attention for a moment, admiring the single white streak that sweeps from her temple and weaves its way through her braid. She doesn’t bother to hide it, and there’s a certain confidence, even rebelliousness in that. I heard Law tell her once to color it, and she laughed. “I earned it,” she said. The thought makes me smile now.
“Fine, fine.” Mom’s lips curl to match mine, but her eyes are sad.
“You don’t seem fine.” I wrap my arms around her neck and hang on tight for a moment. She smells of oatmeal soap and fresh mint from the sprig she puts in her morning tea. There’s a ceramic pot of peppermint in the window above the sink, and she clips and crushes a few leaves in her steaming mug every morning. The aroma of it brewing is the smell of my childhood. I breathe her in, let go. “Are you sure?”