“It’s going to be okay,” I promised her. “We’ll figure it out.”
She shook her head, still looking at Snapple. “If I could just work—” she whispered.
“No, Mom,” I said. “We don’t need that. And anyway, your Social Security disability payments will stop if you start earning money.”
“If I start earningtoo muchmoney,” she corrected. “It would help, I think. If I made even a little bit.”
It would, but the math was more complicated than that. “You know I’ll support anything you want to do,” I told her. “But your health and happiness are worth something too, even if that something isn’t taxable at the end of the year.”
“It’s just—if I have the energy to volunteer and craft sometimes, then I think I should be ready to do more.” Her hand shook as she said it, trembling in Snapple’s gray-brown fur, and I put my hand on top of hers.
“The point isn’t how far we can push ourselves,” I said. “The point is being okay. Being able to live with space and room in our livessowe can be okay.”
She looked up at me, her eyes watery. “I don’t want to be a burden,” she said softly. “That’s not what a mom is supposed to be.”
I squeezed her hand hard. “The best thing that ever happened to me was being your kid,” I said. My throat hurt almost too much for me to get the rest out. “You gave me all your love without ever cutting off pieces of yourself to do it. You made sure I could chase any dream I wanted to chase. You believed in my goodness when teachers wouldn’t, when the press wouldn’t, when the entire world was obsessed with what an asshole I was.”
“The press was too hard on you,” she insisted loyally. “Those teachers too.”
“I deserved them being hard on me and you know it,” I said, laughing a little.
“Well, maybe abit,” she said. Her smile spread into the full one that put dimples deep into her round cheeks.
“I learned that love was sticking around and believing in someone even when it felt impossible,” I told her, my voice turning serious again. “I learned from you that love meant feeling safe and secure even when everything else felt uncertain, and... ah, fuck.”
Mom tilted her head. “What?”
I pulled her into a big hug and then stood. “Nothing. I just need you to know that you’re an amazing mom and you are the opposite of a burden. Every good thing in my life is because you taught me how to earn good things. And on that note, I think I really fucked up, and I need to figure out how to fix it.”
“Is this about Bee Hobbes?” Mom asked.
“Yes,” I said, surprised. “Man, they’re not kidding about a mother’s intuition.”
“Yes, my motherly intuition. And also you keep forgetting to un-Bluetooth your phone when you let me borrow your car, and I’ve seen Bianca von Honey’s name on the radio display plenty of times. And heard her... noises.”
“Ah,” I said, my cheeks flaming. “Well. Um.”
“Go fix things, Nolan,” Mom said. “If you think I deserve space and room, then I think you deserve to be with the person who makes you feel like you have those things too.” She gaveme a smile after taking a deep breath. “And you’re right. We’ll figure everything else out as it comes. We always have.”
Right.
Because that’s what love was—more than a word, more than a mountain of the best and noblest intentions in the world. It was sayingI’ll be here with you when it feels like nothing else is certain.It was sayingLet the storm come, because I’ll never stop holding your hand.
And it was the exact opposite of what I’d said to Bee last night.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said, and I left her and the demon dog on the couch while I went upstairs.
I had a call to make.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Bee
This morning I woke up to no call sheet under my door but did receive an email to meet Teddy and Gretchen at the production office late this afternoon instead. I spent the morning getting breakfast with my moms and pacing my room while Sunny watched aFast and Furiousmarathon.
Just as I was about to leave for the production office, my phone rang. Jack Hart’s name appeared on the screen.
Sunny stared wide-eyed at the phone.
