"It's a pair of jeans, Mom. Not world peace."
Kate looked at her daughter. For once, she wasn't scowling or turning away. "I'm sorry we fight so much."
"Yeah."
"Maybe we could sign you up for that new modeling class, after all. The one in Seattle."
Marah jumped on that scrap like a hungry dog. "You'llfinallylet me go off-island? The next session starts Tuesday. I checked. Tully said she'd pick me up from the ferry." Marah smiled sheepishly. "We've been talking about it."
"Oh, you have, have you?"
"Daddy said it would be okay if I kept my grades up."
"He knows, too? And no one talks to me? Who am I, Hannibal Lecter?"
"You get mad pretty easily these days."
"And whose fault is that?"
"Can I go?"
Kate had no choice, really. "Okay. But if your grades—"
Marah launched herself out of her seat and into Kate's arms. She held her daughter tightly, reveling in the moment. She couldn't remember the last time Marah had initiated a hug.
Long after Marah had run into the house, Kate was still sitting in the car, staring after her daughter, wondering if the modeling class was a good idea. That was the sly, ruinous thing about motherhood, the thing that twisted your insides with guilt and made you change your mind and lower your standards: giving in was so damned easy.
It wasn't that she didn't want Marah to take the classes, precisely. It was that she didn't want Marah on that difficult road so young. Rejections, corruption, beauty that went no deeper than the skin, drugs, and anorexia. All that lay beneath the surface of the modeling world. Self-esteem and body image were too fragile in the teen years. God knew a girl could fall off the track even without the burden of constant beauty-based rejection.
In short, Kate wasn't afraid her gorgeous daughter wouldn't make it in the world of runways and taped-on clothing. Rather, she was afraid she would, and then her childhood would be lost.
Finally, she left the car and went inside, muttering, "I should have held firm."
The mother's lament. She was trying to figure out how to backtrack (impossible now) when the phone rang. Kate didn't even bother answering. In these last few weeks of summer, she'd learned one true thing: teenage girls lived on the phone.
"Mom! It's Grandma for you," Marah screamed down the stairs. "But don't take too long. Gabe is gonna call me."
She picked up the phone and heard the exhalation of smoke on the other end. Smiling, she ignored the groceries and plopped onto the couch, curling up under an afghan that still smelled like her mother. "Hey, Mom."
"You sound terrible."
"You can tell that from my breathing?"
"You have a teenage daughter, don't you?"
"Believe me, I was never this bad."
Mom laughed; it was a horsey, hacking sound. "I guess you don't remember all the times you told me to butt out of your life and then slammed the door in my face."
The memory was vague but not impossible to recall. "I'm sorry, Mom."
There was a pause. Then Mom said, "Thirty years."
"Thirty years what?"
"That's how long before you'll get an apology, too, but you know what's great?"
Kate groaned. "That I might not live that long?"
