“I don’t know what to say.” Ana shrugs. “It’s anticlimactic, but that’s family for you. I know the issues, but I’m stuck. This is why I dumped my last therapist. All she wanted to do was talk, but that didn’t change anything about my situation, only how I viewed it.”
She’s right. “We can’t leave it unresolved like this. Let’s pick one thing we need to address and then tell each other what we’re going to do about it.”
She considers this. “Like accountability partners, but for life instead of the gym. I like it. What’s your thing?”
“You go first.”
“No, you.”
“Fine.” I think of the mess I’ve made of everything. It might be unfair to say, but all this started with my moli. That’s where my answer will begin, although I know it won’t be the end.
Aiai wrote that she’d once asked Empress Wu why only the rich should be able to afford love, and the empress had laughed and called her a village girl with a village girl mind. Aiai was the one who saw clearly, and like the interpretation of her power, her goals were warped over the years by generations of women driven by fear and perhaps greed, who limited their moli sales to those who could pay the most. I didn’t like that.
“I’m going to make a perfume,” I say slowly, waiting for Ana to roll her eyes and ask how that’s going to solve anything.
She only nods. “I got you.”
“I don’t know how, but it will be a perfume to make a difference,” I say.
“I know it will.”
“What about you?”
She sighs. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Every shift starts with a small decision,” I say. “It doesn’t have to be big.”
Ana chews her lip. “I don’t like it when Mom makes fun of the store,” she says. “I could tell her it hurts my feelings instead of laughing it off like it doesn’t bother me. Why do I feel like a little kid saying this?”
“Maybe because moms kind of make us feel like kids no matter how old we are?” There’s a reason I started with making a world-changing perfume instead of talking to my mother.
She waves her hands. “On today’s episode of what I should talk about in therapy but hate to get that vulnerable about: mommy issues!”
We laugh.
“You could be right,” she says. “When do you think we move past wanting our parents’ approval?”
“Death?”
“That’s depressing.”
“Yeah. It doesn’t mean we can’t move on, though.”
“I can do it,” she says. “I can tell her how I feel.”
“When are you going to do it?”
She glances at her phone. “I’m due there to pick up a package, and I’ve had enough liquid courage that it might be tonight.”
“If you do your thing, I’ll get started on mine.”
She leans over to give me a hug, the scent I made for her birthday puffing out in a breath from her clothes. “I’m glad we’re friends.”
“Me too.”
Ana thinks for a second. “Your witch thing.”
“We call the power moli, but what about it?”
