Tonight the Streets Are Ours

“So do it,” Arden says. “Come back with me.”


“Sweetheart, it’s not so simple.” Arden’s mother brings over a plate of pancakes, but neither of them takes a bite. She sits on the armchair across from Arden, curling her feet up under her. Arden does not recognize any of the furniture in this apartment—which makes sense, since her mother is just subletting it. Nothing in here is her mother’s style; Arden sees no flowers, no inspirational quotes, no eyelets, no gingham—just a lot of black-and-white photos and boxy furniture. It feels like a stranger lives here, not her mother at all.

“I read your letter,” Arden says.

“Thank you.” Her mother blinks. “I wasn’t sure, since you didn’t say anything … I thought maybe you just threw it away.”

“I did,” Arden says. “But I read it, too.”

“And what did you think?” her mother asks.

“It made me wish you hadn’t felt like you needed to do all that stuff for us. You didn’t need to. The night you left—I didn’t need you to make that dress from scratch, Mom. I never asked you to do that. You didn’t need to make Roman some fancy mac and cheese. You know he’d just eat a bowl of cereal and be every bit as happy. I wish you’d done less for us and stuck around. We don’t need you to be a perfect mom sometimes if it means you’re a nonexistent mom the rest of the time. We just need you there.”

“I understand that,” her mother says. “I’m trying to figure out how I can learn to be a just-okay mom. I really am.”

“I didn’t get it at first,” Arden says. “Your letter didn’t make any sense, why you’d do all these things for us that we didn’t need, and then complain about having to do so much. But there’s something you said in there, about feeling like if people need you, then that must mean that you really matter. And I guess … that makes sense to me now.”

Arden thinks about Lindsey’s cold words last night, claiming that she didn’t need anything from Arden, not even the Disney vacation. And maybe that’s true. Maybe Lindsey could have gotten through her whole life without Arden ever lifting a finger to help her, without ever even running into Arden that day in the woods when they were little girls. But Arden believes with a deep certainty that it doesn’t matter whether Lindsey ever needed her, because having Arden has made Lindsey’s life better. And it works both ways, because having Lindsey has made Arden’s life better, too.

“Here’s what I want to know,” Arden says. “All that stuff you always told me—about how some people are gardeners, and how kindness is my power, and how charity will do more for you than selfishness—was that all wrong?”

“No,” her mother says. “Not wrong. All of that does matter. Other people matter hugely. But you have to matter to yourself, too. There has to be a balance. I’m still figuring out that balance, myself. But I know this one thing: sacrificing everything that you care about in order to make another person happy is not love. It’s not really that some people are gardeners and some people are flowers, Arden. It’s that we both must be both, each in our own time.”

Arden considers this and at last takes a bite of pancake. It tastes exactly the way it’s supposed to.

“Has moving here helped?” Arden asks after she’s swallowed. “I mean, are you happy now?”