“To spend your life wondering about a place like that,” she says. “To always feel like you have one foot in and one foot out.”
I feel my face grow hot under her gaze. “So what happened?”
“I ended up getting a scholarship here,” she says, sweeping an arm out. “And my dad thought it was too good an opportunity to pass up. They’d sacrificed a lot to come to this country. He really wanted me to go to school here.”
“Do you ever regret it?”
She shakes her head. “I came to really love it after a while. And eventually I fell in love with Chicago too. And Jake.”
“But what about—”
“Argentina will always be my home in some ways. Florida too.” She smiles. “It’s possible to have more than one, you know.”
We walk in silence for a few minutes. Above us the sky is threaded with light, the sun pushing its way through the silver clouds. Between buildings I can see flashes of Lake Michigan, the water blue-gray and tipped with white.
“I know what you’re trying to do,” I say, breaking the silence, and Aunt Sofia glances over at me, her face untroubled.
“What’s that?”
“You want me to pick Northwestern over Stanford. You want me to be closer.”
She stops walking. “Alice.”
“I just don’t get why,” I say, speaking fast now. “I always thought you guys were on board about Stanford, but the minute I finally get in you bring me here? I know you love it, but Northwestern was never part of the plan, and—”
“Alice,” she says again, her voice full of patience, but I can’t stop. Not yet.
“And Stanford, it’s…it’s what my mom wanted.”
The words come out with more force than intended, and when Aunt Sofia doesn’t say anything, when she just continues to look at me with a mixture of worry and understanding, something heavy washes over me.
She did,I want to say, suddenly eager to be understood.She wanted it.
And if she couldn’t do it, then shouldn’t I?
The sun moves behind the clouds again, and the world grows dim. I pull in a shaky breath. Taking my arm, Aunt Sofia steers me gently over to a bench. The wood is damp and cold, but we sit down anyway, and I stare out at the too-green grass of the quad, wondering why my insides feel like they’re splitting open.
“Hey,” she says softly. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to be close to you guys,” I say, my voice trembling. “It’s just…”
“It’s what your mom wanted,” she says. “I get that. I do. And I can’t imagine how hard this must be.”
“What?”
She looks surprised. “Well, not having her here for this. It’s such a big decision.”
“She would’ve wanted Stanford,” I say firmly.
“Right. Of course.” She nods. “It’s just…I want to make sure that’s what you want too.”
“It is,” I say automatically. “I want…”
I stop. Then pause. Then try again.
“I want…”
But I trail off, because the truth is I’m not totally sure what I want. And if I’m being really honest, I don’t know what she’d want either.
