I used to love her name.Katheryn.I thought it was the loveliest word, like those three little syllables conveyed all that was beautiful and graceful in the world. I called her Katheryn once when I was little. We were at church and I asked her to pass the hymnal, adding her name to the end of my request as if I always referred to my mom by her first name. It felt wrong the moment I said it, and all I could do was mumble an apology when she told me it was rude.
I could call her Katheryn now if I wanted—Momwas the word that felt wrong—but I no longer thought her name was beautiful. She still was, but not in a way I envied anymore.
The mirror in my bathroom was steamed over from my shower. I smeared my hand across the glass and searched my face, my frame, for any trace of her. Each little piece I found—the slope of my shoulder, the curve of my chin, the arch of my eyebrow, all things I would have relished once—hit me like a physical slap. Did Dad see this much of her when he looked at me? Did he also hate those little glimpses of her that seemed to shout out of my skin?
I left my hair long and loose down my back, blow-drying it stick-straight without a single wave like hers. I wasn’t thinking about it getting in my way at the garage; I wanted to look as little like her as possible.
I was zipping up my coveralls over my shirt when I walked into my room.
“What is it with girls and pillows?”
I whirled, grabbing the first thing my hands encountered—a glass candleholder—and caught myself a second before hurling it. Sean was stretched out on my bed, a mint-green throw pillow clasped to his chest. I’d walked right past him without even noticing. Maybe I did have too many pillows.
“Get out of my room! Ugh. And get off my bed. You’re all sweaty.”
“Well, you don’t look sick.” He sat up and squinted at me.
I grabbed the pillow from him and smelled it. Sweat. “That’s my favorite one, Sean.” I tossed it back and dropped my voice. “And I never said I was sick. I needed a break. And since when do you break into my house?”
Sean climbed out from under the pillows and sat next to me at the foot of my bed while I tied my boots. “Call me next time you need a break. You know I need a buffer with Claire.”
“Finally.” Claire came into my room with a steaming mug in her hand. “We’ve been waiting for twenty minutes. I finally used the garage code when you didn’t answer my texts.” She held out the mug and started relaying the run I’d missed.
“Sorry.” I took the mug, and a sense of wrongness crept up my skin like a spider. I raised the drink to my lips, pulling the rich scent deep into my lungs.
And I stopped.
When I was ten, I’d gotten caught shoplifting. Not by the store, but by Dad when he found me eating my stolen candy bars in my room. I came to regret my brief foray into crime many times over that summer. First, when Dad took me back to the grocery store to confess, and later, when he insisted I work off the cost of those candy bars a hundred times over. To that day I still got nauseous when I saw a Milky Way commercial on TV.
The coffee was the same.
Dad and I were strictly Dutch Bros. drinkers. There was one right next to the shop that we hit religiously.
Mom had preferred to brew her own. It was one of those little details I hadn’t noticed at first. Mornings had always smelled like coffee when she was here. But not for the past several months.
I set the mug down on the far edge of my dresser like it was poisonous.
Claire put her hands on her hips. “What? I used the bag next to the coffeemaker. I even added real milk and sugar—”
Sean made an interested noise and grabbed the mug.
“—even though almond milk and Stevia taste just as good and won’t immediately turn into fat.”
I shook my head. “It’s my mom’s coffee.”
Claire made anohexpression and pulled the mug away from Sean midsip.
“Hey!”
She frowned at him before carrying it out of my room.
Sean frowned back until he saw my face. Before he could say anything, we heard the sink in the kitchen and then Claire was back, her head peeking around the door.
“Your mom didn’t make lemon muffins, did she?”
“She didn’t really bake.”
“Good.” Claire produced a plate full of them. “I’ve been messing around with a recipe.” She searched my face as I took a bite and chewed. The muffins were surprisingly tasty considering how healthy I assumed they were. I wasn’t used to equating the two yet, despite Claire’s constant efforts.
