Ava beamed. Leo clapped.
And just like that, I gathered my very blue child, thanked Becca again, and headed for the car, already planning the emergency dye run. It was time for damage control. Damage control and milkshakes.
But under all that?
I was smiling. Because the messy, vibrant, chaotic little universe felt a whole lot more like a life than the one I left behind.
Ava was quiet at first as we walked to the car. She buckled as I shoved some emergency wipes into her hands for the blue smudges and pulled away from the curb.
We were halfway to the drugstore when she finally spoke.
“Are you mad?” she asked.
It hit me right in the sternum. My fierce, weird, brilliant girl, bracing herself for anger she wasn’t going to get.
I shook my head quickly. “Oh, baby. No. I’m not mad. Just . . . ” I glanced at her hair, still wildly, unapologetically blue. “ . . . surprised. Very surprised. But not mad.”
She nodded slowly, processing that.
I reached over at the next red light and squeezed her hand. “I promise.”
Her shoulders loosened, just a little.
We ducked into the drugstore together, grabbing a box of dye that promised “even coverage” in a font that felt like false advertising. Ava carried one box solemnly to the counter, like an offering.
As we checked out, I nudged her gently with my elbow. “So . . . Grandma and Aunt Stacy are out at that dinner thing tonight.” Her eyes flicked up cautiously. “What do you say to some chicken nuggets?”
Ava considered this with all the seriousness of a Supreme Court justice. “Yes,” she said at last.
I snorted. “Good. I was craving a milkshake.”
Back in the car, the tinted sky just starting to turn purple, we pulled into the drive-thru. I ordered our usual: nuggets for her, fries for me, and two chocolate shakes, and that was when I heard her tiny voice again.
“Mother?”
“Yes, baby?”
She was staring out the window, twisting a blue-stained strand between her fingers. “I didn’t do it to be . . . bad.” She swallowed, eyes still on the traffic menu. “I did it to look like you.”
My breath caught. “Like me?”
She nodded once. Firm. “The picture. The one on your mirror.”
For a second, the whole drive-thru blurred. My heart felt fit to burst.
That picture . . . Me at nineteen, grinning with bright blue hair. Free. Loud. Alive. A girl who believed she could make entire worlds.
“Oh, baby,” I whispered. “You just made my heart smile so big it might fall out.”
Ava finally met my eyes, her own soft and unsure. “Do you like it?” she asked.
I cupped her cheek, blue smudge and all. “I love it. And when we get home, we’re going to make it look even more amazing.”
She exhaled like it was relief. Or release. Then she leaned back in her seat, a tiny satisfied smile creeping in, and whispered, “Good.”
The drive-thru speaker crackled with our order number, and I pulled forward with a heart that felt brighter, and bluer, than it had in years.
By the time we got home, our car smelled like fries and chocolate milkshakes and faint chemical-blue rebellion. Ava carried the drugstore bag upstairs like it contained ancient relics. I followed with our food, balancing a nugget in my mouth as I nudged open the bathroom door.
