“Mila, come here!”
With a sigh, I jabbed my bookmark into the middle of The Handmaid’s Tale and rolled off the green-and-gold quilt that came with the room and always smelled faintly of mothballs and lavender. Rain tap-tapped an offbeat rhythm against the window. Figuring she wanted me to check on the horses, I slipped my feet into my discarded Nikes and headed down the hall.
Mom waited by the coat rack, practically drowning in the brown fleece blanket she’d tossed over her shoulder. An unusually wide grin spread across her face. The sight of that smile, aimed at me, melted away any residual craving for Atwood and my bed. That was a smile from the old days. A smile that banished some of my loneliness and promised good things to come.
I almost didn’t want to say anything, in case talking broke the spell, but curiosity won out. “What are we doing?”
She pulled the front door open. “We’re going to watch the storm.”
I swung my legs back and forth against the rickety porch edge. Mom’s suggestion to go outside and experience the storm had sounded crazy at first, not to mention extremely un-Mom-like. But I couldn’t say no. Not when the invitations were so few and far between.
Raindrops splattered against my upturned palms. As usual, Mom was right—there was nothing quite like experiencing a Midwest storm firsthand. The sky’s vivid light show, the thick humidity that made my jeans cling to my legs, the smell of electricity and damp dirt, it enveloped us.
“Isn’t this amazing?” Mom asked.
In a stun of disbelief, I watched her peel off her boots and toss them over her shoulder. They hit the porch with a thud while she wiggled her bare toes under the drizzle. Her sigh was pure bliss. Yep. Decidedly un-Mom-like.
“You should try it.”
My shoes were stripped off before she could realize the storm had addled her brain. Under the dim light and mist, our naked skin glowed a ghostly white.
“Feels great, doesn’t it?”
The tiny drops felt wet more than anything, but her enjoyment was infectious. What really felt great was her acceptance. “Definitely.”
Another diagonal of light cracked the night sky. For a moment, all of Clearwater was illuminated, like someone had switched on a giant spotlight. Just as quickly, the brightness was snatched away and darkness returned, broken only by the glow from our kitchen window.
“One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand, five—” A deep rumble overhead cut off Mom’s strange chant.
“What’s the counting for?”
“Just something…we used to do together.”
My legs stopped moving. Mom rarely talked about the past, especially not in the context of things we’d done together. I got the distinct impression that she wanted nothing more than to wipe the slate clean. To start completely fresh here in Clearwater.
Too many questions to name spiraled through my head. In the interest of starting small, I latched on to one of the most innocuous ones.
“Did I used to like nail polish? I mean, before?” I said, thinking back to Kaylee’s Dairy Queen convo.
I knew I’d made the right decision when even that simple, fluffy inquiry caused her to flinch. I held my breath, half expecting her to ignore me.
“Yes. When you were little. But…but only toenail polish, and only if your dad and I would wear it, too.”
She started off hesitantly, but the longer she talked, the more the story gained steam. “In fact, this one time, your dad forgot to take it off, and then he went to the gym…well, you can imagine the looks he got.”
She reached out to squeeze my shoulder, laughing. “Can’t you picture it? Your big, manly father…sporting pink sparkle nail polish.”
And with her words as my guide, I could picture it. My stout, dark-haired father. Standing in his gym shorts in the locker room and shaking his head at his sparkling toes. I reveled in the image for a moment before pressing on. Her laughter, the shoulder squeeze, had made me bold.
“Did the doctors do anything to my ears, after the fire?”
The second her hand dropped away, I knew I’d made a mistake, pushed too far. But I pressed on. “I have this memory. Of a man, in a white coat. And he did something to my ear….”
It was no use. Even in the dim light, I could see her lips press together. She wrapped her arms around her waist, angled her head away from me, did everything short of slapping duct tape on her mouth and flashing a DON’T ASK sign.
“Why won’t you answer me?” I whispered, even as the familiar weight of rejection settled on my shoulders. “Please. This has been hard for me, too.” I hated the beggarlike quality to my voice, but I couldn’t help it.