She let go of my hand and drew her own close to her, tucked it into her lap. We sat there in silence for a while.
“And I didn’t realize this until today,” Mom continued, “but I think I was also a little jealous. Because, what I wouldn’t give for a chance to be back there. In that place where love seems simple and fresh.”
There were tears in her eyes now. I realized she wasn’t talking about her past anymore.
“Are you and Richard going to break up?” I asked.
I expected her to say, What? God, no! Instead, she said softly, “I hope not.”
“You’re always mad at each other. You barely speak sometimes.”
“We’re not in a good place right now, that’s for sure. But that doesn’t mean we won’t figure it out.”
“But you love him,” I prodded.
Mom took a deep breath. “I do. It’s not the same kind of love it was before. It’s more complicated. But maybe that’s okay.”
“Make it okay,” I said. “Please make it okay.”
She nodded and searched my face.
I reached into my bag and dug my hand into an inside pocket, where the box with the Silver Arrow pin was still tucked away.
“I got something for you at the SuperCon.”
I pulled it out and spread open my palm, put the box on it. Mom took it and when she saw the pin, she smiled.
“This is fantastic,” she said.
“You don’t have to wear it. I just thought it would be fun for you to have.”
Mom nodded, then started to break down. “I’m sorry for everything, Ari. Bear with me while I try to fit it all together. I want my life. I have good days and bad days.”
“There are these things called therapy and medication that I highly recommend,” I said.
She laughed. “Thank you. I’ll look into it.” Then she got serious. “Watching you slowly come back from that night you hurt yourself . . . it’s made me so proud. Nervous and terrified, but proud.”
“Thanks,” I whispered, not sure if that was the right thing to say, and turned back to gaze out the window. This kind of intensity was blinding and it was hard to look straight at it for too long.
All this time with Camden, I thought I had no good examples of love, nothing to give me a road map or even a basic flow chart. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe love was not always going to be something I recognized when I saw it. Maybe it was not the reward you got for working through something, but the working through itself.
“Do you need to go back to the hospital?” I asked Mom.
“No, I took the day off. I think you should, too.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Mom smiled. “I know the boss. I can pull some strings. We can do something fun.”
“Don’t tell me: you want to go to Target.”
“Actually, I noticed there’s a noon showing of some movie I’ve never heard of.” She pointed out the window to the theater across the street.
I glanced at the marquee. “Oh, yeah. That’s supposed to be really silly.”
My mother heaved a bone-deep, tired sigh. “Silly sounds like heaven.”
It really did. She paid for the tickets, but I bought the popcorn.
Late August.
Still summer, officially, but now there were tiny sadnesses everywhere.
The slightly stiff feeling of the weeds on the front steps under my bare feet, a sign they’d start dying soon. The night air stripped of a layer, revealing a new coolness that wasn’t there before. Three annoyingly overachieving red leaves on the tree in our front yard.
Usually, this time of year was when I started savoring every morsel of summer. But now I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Summer being over meant being able to seal the whole messy thing up and move on. Start school. Have a great senior year. Finish strong.
But first, I had to say good-bye to Kendall.
“Hey,” said my best friend as she approached the Crapper at the lake, carrying the rolled-up towel I’d instructed her to bring.
We hugged, and maybe it was my imagination, but she already looked changed.
“Did you pay yet?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I thought we’d go this way first,” I said, then pointed toward the entrance to the trail to the creek.
Kendall raised her eyebrows. I’d never told her what was back there.
“Where exactly does this trail go?” she asked. “I thought it just went a little into the woods.”
“You’ll see in a minute.”
We walked the rest of the way in silence, and then she did see. The creek opened up before us and Kendall stopped dead in her tracks. I gave her some time to take it all in.
“How can this be here without us knowing?” she wondered aloud.
“I know, right? The nerve of it.” We both laughed a little.
We went to the water’s edge and found a wide, flat rock. I didn’t want to go farther, out into the creek and possibly the rock where Max and Eliza had once ravished each other.
“Camden brought you here, didn’t he?” said Kendall after we unrolled our towels and sat down.
“Yes. If you keep going along the creek, you can actually see part of the lake.”