She slowly drops down into her chair, wiping at her tears, and I do the same.
“I never meant for any of this to happen.” She crumples in on herself. “I’m sorry if you didn’t have the experience you were hoping for this year because of me. That’s the opposite of what I wanted.”
She looks so crushed. Since the moment I realized she wasn’t coming today, I’ve been upset and resentful, but more than anything I’ve been scared. I was worried her reaction would break me, but instead I’m the one doing the breaking.
I lean forward. “Mom, I had an awesome year of marching band. I was with my best friend, I had an amazing group of guard members, and we actually won against Oak Grove. No one has done that in years. Maybe our senior years weren’tidentical, but they were both really great. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Yeah?” She lifts her eyes hopefully.
“Yeah.” I squeeze her hand. “And I also had parents who came to every single show, and cheered so loudly I could hear them across a football field, and wore embarrassing T-shirts and buttons—”
She laugh-sobs and I do the same.
“And not everyone has parents like that. Senior year wouldn’t have been as good without you there for every step of it.”
“Oh, Hazel,” she whispers and pulls me into another hug. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there today.”
“It’s okay.” I squeeze her back. “But there’s something you can do to make it up to me.”
She sits back expectantly. “Name it, I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Don’t wear those shirts to state with that horrible picture of me on them?”
She bursts out laughing. “Hey, I tried my best on those!”
“You chose a picture where you can clearly see my zit!”
“Did I? I didn’t notice. You always look beautiful to me.”
“Mom! It’s a very bad picture.” I sigh. “Fine, I guess you can wear them—butonlyfor the performance. Bring sweaters or something to put over them for the drive home.”
She chuckles. “Absolutely.”
I’m shaky and my heart is still racing from our conversation, but I also feel weightless, like I could float away into the sky if there wasn’t a ceiling above me. Mom, on the otherhand, looks absolutely exhausted. If she laid her head on the table, I bet she could fall asleep in an instant.
“Is everything okay with you?” I ask. “Not to rub it in, but you never miss band stuff.”
She laughs sadly. “Do you ever have a day—or a week—when it feels like you’ve taken on way too much and there’s no way you can handle it all?”
“That sounds like a lot of my weeks.”
She leans back in her chair. “Really? But you always have your life together.”
My mouth drops open. “Ihave everything together? It’s the opposite. Between being captain and DMing for the first time, plus school, I felt like I was constantly dropping balls and letting people down. You’re the superhero around here.”
“Not lately, I’m not. If you ever looked at my Notes app on my phone, you’d find about five billion half-completed notes to keep me on schedule. But even then, the wheels fly off the bus sometimes. Like today.”
“Maybe today was a good thing? In a very weird way.”
“Maybe. I’m glad we talked, though I wish the circumstances were different. Thank you for not shutting me out.”
“Thank you for taking time to create shockingly embarrassing T-shirts of me.”
She laughs and stands up. “You’re very welcome.”
“Do you need help with dinner?” Usually Mom has a Crock-Pot or Instant Pot or some kind of pot going by early evening.
“Definitely not. I’m texting your dad—we’re all going out to eat tonight. I think we could both use the break.”
