She bites her lower lip, which makes me wonder if he was a good father for all three years or just a couple of weeks here and there?
“When you were born, he would sit by your crib and play you lullabies on his guitar to put you to sleep.” Mom smooths back my hair. “And then, while I was completing my decoratin’ certificate course, he’d take you with him to band practice. He even got you a tiny pair of pink headphones. I still have them somewhere.”
“I don’t want them.”
Her hand rhythmically sweeps my hair back. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you. Because I don’t want you to hate him. He loved you. And he was talented. Besides, hating him will only hurt you.”
I stare past her.
“He’s gone, baby.”
I keep my gaze on the Dairy Fairy’s cheery turquoise wall.
Mom sighs deeply, then picks up her plastic spoon and rotates it slowly in the swirled cream. “I don’t know what happened between Jeff and Mona. What I believe happened, though, because I’ve seen it withfriends of mine, is that her success made them drift apart. When you stop lookin’ in the same direction, you start going in different directions. And it takes a lot for people to stop and turn around, to check where their partners are at. And it takes a heck of a lot more for people to concede and retrace their steps. Hop over all those little cracks in the road. Sometimes, those cracks are so wide, hoppin’ over them becomes impossible.” She keeps churning her frozen yogurt. “But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe that’s not what happened between Mona and Jeff. Maybe they just fell out of love. Whatever it is, though, you shouldn’t judge people without getting the entire story.”
“You judged Mona. You’ve always judged her and you don’t know her personally. Unless you do…” I narrow my eyes. “You’re good at keeping secrets.”
Mom draws away from me. “I was trying to protect you. That’s what mothersshoulddo. And that’s probably why I’m so harsh in my judgment of Mona. Because she’s a mother. But you’re right… it’s unfair of me.” She palms her shiny cheeks.
“Can I enter her contest, then?”
“Angela Conrad!”
“What?”
“Just because I’m admitting to judgin’ her unfairly does not change my opinion.”
I grit my teeth. “Are you worried it’ll get you fired?”
“Of course not. I just want more for you than—”
“Doesn’t what I want matter?”
“It’s a phase.”
“It’s not a phase!” My ambition is theonlything that hasn’t changed—the chorus that forever repeats and never varies when all the verses around it shift. “Stop thinking I’ll outgrow it, because I won’t.”
Mom’s disappointment is as pungent as the sweet vanilla scent of the Dairy Fairy. She lowers her gaze to her shoes—an übertrendy pair of white sneakers with sparkly smiley faces on the back.
I want to spring out of my chair and storm away, but a tear rolls down her cheek, and it drains the rage right out of me.
For now.
For today.
I clasp her hand. Her skin is cold. Mine isn’t much warmer.
I think back on our fortunes that day at Golden Dragon. “Should’ve worn your booties.”
She finally looks up from her sneakers. “What?” she croaks.
“Those made you happy, remember?”
Mom’s blotched forehead furrows, but then it must come back to her, because a laugh bursts out of her mouth.
“I love you, Mom.” Secrets and opinions and all, I love her, because I understand she’s trying to protect me from a passion she thinks turns people mean and miserable. It reinforces my desire to participate in the contest, if only to disprove her theory.
Her chair legs scrape, and then she stamps a long kiss on my temple. “You are my world.” Her hands flutter over my brow, my nose, my chin as though marking me as hers.
