“Things change.”
“I know relationships change, but I don’t think it’s good for you to shoehorn your memories into some new narrative.”
I twist my neck around, trying to stretch it to alleviate some of the tension. “My place is still too small.”
His sigh comes through the phone. “When are you coming back?”
“Tomorrow evening.”
“I’ll see you at home, Lucy.”
Rafe may have been right about my mother’s and my relationship, but that was in the past. We haven’t found our way to interacting as adults instead of mother and child. The register is in my bag, and I reach in to touch it with tentative fingers. Maybe it’s time for me to read Mom’s chapter, if we’re going to be stuck with each other for the foreseeable future.
Then her voice comes from the other room. “Luling!” she calls. She appears in my door before I can answer.
I pull my hand away as another thought occurs to me. “What happened to the bottle I brought?”
She knows I’m talking about the moli. “Safe.”
I’m too tired to go back to the lab and fetch it. The bottle will be fine locked up in the lab behind that huge door.
Mom casts a critical glance at my suitcase. “You should roll your clothes. Fewer wrinkles.”
Already managing my life. She leaves and I stuff the register in among my flat-folded clothes, deciding to leave Mom’s chapter for another day. I’m not ready for her inner thoughts when I have her outer ones to contend with.
20
Hua Jing
Yuan dynasty. Jing moved the family to Nanjing, away from the frontier capital of Beijing.
Heart note //Block insecurity
Base note //Juniper
Mom and I take the SkyTrain to the airport, since Mom, despite saying we can save money by sharing a cab, decides to save more by skipping the convenience altogether.
Ana sends me more photos of her jewelry, interrupting Mom’s disapproving commentary about the shoddy nature of goods in the airport stores and women wearing leggings as pants. Despite lifting my shoulder to block her line of sight, she looks at my message.
“What’s that?”
“My shopmate, Ana, is a silversmith and decided to start designing again.” I scroll to the next photo, which is similar to the daisy chain she showed me, but with pineapples.
“Very nice,” my mother says. This is high praise. “The central pendant could hold a scent to make it stand out.”
“I thought so too.” I’m a little surprised we had the same idea;I thought it would be too cutesy for her. “She had cherry earrings that would be nice with a touch of rum and vanilla. Sweet, like maraschino.”
“Or go further with chocolate and ginger.”
I like to talk perfumes with Mom, and we swap a few more ideas before she says, “Enough of this. You need to focus on your moli. No time for little side projects.”
She opens her bag and unpacks the sandwiches, granola bars, and cut fruit she brought from home, citing the exorbitant cost of airport food. We eat in silence before boarding the plane. To my relief, we’re not sitting next to each other, and I settle in for a few hours of peace. This time I don’t sleep but spend the time worrying about the logistics of Mom’s visit. By the time we’re flying somewhere possibly near Medicine Hat, I’ve worried about, in no particular order:
Whether we’ll have to share all our meals. Corollary: Who will cook? Probably Mom. It honestly feels weird to cook for her, like an inversion of our roles.
Work. Will she want to go with me?
If shedoesn’tcome to work with me, what will she do all day?
