Stella nodded. “Yeah.”
“Even if your mom was weird about it?”
“Especially then.”
Bea looked at her.
“That’s very you,” Bea said.
“It’s just true.”
Bea took another sip of the mango and grimaced. Set it down. Picked at a thread on the edge of the couch cushion. Stella thought about picking up her camera but didn’t.
“Will you come with me?” Bea said.
She had known this was coming since Sunday night. She had decided not to say it too fast.
She said it too fast.
“Yes.”
Bea blinked. “Really? You didn’t even think about it.”
“I thought about it.” Stella shrugged.
“Why do you want to go?”
There was the question. Stella turned the pencil in her fingers one more time and set it on the table.
“Because you asked,” she said. “And because somebody should keep an eye on you.”
“I don’t need looking after.”
“Everyone needs looking after.”
Bea watched her—patient, quiet, the same look she gave Anna before Anna said something hard, or Michael when he did something she hadn’t seen before. Bea could wait out most people.
She waited out Stella for about eight seconds.
“I think there’s more,” Bea said.
“I want to see what she is.” Stella took a drink she didn’t want. “Not sure why I should care. I’ve never met her. She doesn’t know I exist. But you’re going and I’m going and that’s it.”
Bea watched her for another second. Then she nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
Outside, the February light had shifted—the window going from gold to blue, the shadow of the fence stretching across the living room floor. Tyler moved around in the garage—a drawer sliding open, a drawer sliding shut, silence.
“I keep trying to remember what she’s like,” Bea said.
“Sam?”
Bea nodded. “I have these pieces. She made me a birthday cake once with real flowers on it—not frosting flowers, actual flowers from the yard. And she took me to a gallery when I was maybe seven and let me touch a painting when the guard wasn’t looking.” Bea picked at the thread on the cushion some more. “But I don’t know if I’m remembering her or remembering the idea of her.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference is whether she’s going to be the person I remember or someone else.”
