“Why didn’t you?”
“You know my story. I met your father, he swept me off my feet, and it was all too easy to forget what came before.” She pats my hand on the table. “And then I had my baby girl, and everything that came before wasn’t worth remembering anyway.”
I give a small smile. “But I don’t know what came before. You never talk about your life before Dad.”
A faraway look comes over her green eyes before she blinks it away. “Well,” she says uncertainly. “As much as you’re cut from a different cloth, Jade, I suppose I wanted many of thesame things you do.” She takes a long drink of wine, keeping her eyes down.
“What things?”
“Oh.” She takes her time, making a show of having to think about her answer, but I know she’s acting. She knows her answer. “Adventure and travel, I suppose. And, well ... freedom.”
I wait, hoping she’ll elaborate, but something about her awkwardness stops me from pushing her. She doesn’t want to talk about her life before Dad.
“Anyway, what I mean to say is I love to see you prioritizing yourself and your dreams and not letting anyone hold you back.”
“That’s important,” I agree. “But so is Reeve.”
“Sure, but Jade, you’re young. If it’s not him, it’ll be another wonderful man. You have the whole world at your feet.”
“So you wish you’d prioritized your own plans when Dad came along?”
“What a question.” She puts a hand to her chest and laughs uncomfortably, like I’ve just asked for the secrets of her sex life. “Everything turned out, didn’t it?”
Everything turned out shitty. Mom devoting herself to a man who will never return the favor, faking her way through life with her phony smiles, all the while she can’t navigate an airport on her own, and life is chipping away at her piece by piece. That’s why she looks the way she does, frail and lost in her polished clothing, still so beautiful at fifty, but her eyes looking more lost than ever. She’ll never answer the question of whether she wishes she’d prioritized her own dreams, but I don’t need her to. I know what I wish she’d done.
THIRTY-SIX
jade
The next day,I stare down at my phone and read for the third time the email from my adviser, a long forwarded message from one of the schools in Spain with all the details on the in-person interviews they’re holding in New York in December—the interviews I’ve spent weeks preparing for. But it’s the three sentences Mark typed to me that are making my stomach knot up.
The deadline is this week, so I want to confirm you’re on board. Registration and the accompanying fee are due Friday, no exceptions. When we meet, be prepared with your final decision.
“Hey!”Right on time, Lenni appears and pulls out the metal chair across the little café table from me. Her curls have been pulled into a lopsided bun and dark circles ring her eyes, but she smiles as she sits down.
“Hi.” I shove my phone into my purse. “So? Are your applications done?” Lenni set herself a deadline to finish all her grad school applications by tomorrow, which means I don’t know the last time she had a full night’s sleep.
“One to go,” she says with a soft sigh. “I’m going to finish it tonight and then I’m going to sleep for a week. How’s your day?”
“Shitty. Mark just reminded me about interviewing in New York next month. Friday’s the deadline.”
“Wow, that came fast. So you’re not sure what to do.”
“Actually, I am. I’m gonna go for it.”
“For the interview?”
I nod. “For the interview.” I take a breath, the words on my tongue stirring up a storm of anxiety. “And for all of it. If I get into a program I can afford, I’m going to Spain.”
Lenni blinks at me. “What? I would have bet my life you were about to tell me you weren’t going! Last week you said you didn’t even know why you wanted to go anymore.”
Uncertainty swirls inside me all over again. “I know, but there’s a lot up in the air between me and Reeve. At least Spain I can control.”
“You know you’ve got issues when controlling an entire wealthy first-world nation seems more doable than being in a relationship.”
“I still want the relationship. But lunch with my mom yesterday? God, it was painful to see her. She’s immediately dazed and confused without my dad at her side while trying to laugh it off and act like life is so great. Then she tells me how glad she is I’m not making the same mistake she did by setting aside her dreams for my father.”
“Wow, she actually said that?”
