And in September, Nora would go off to Yale, off to find herself and change the world and fall in love with a young man who quoted Camus and played his guitar in the quad.
She and Dean were supposed to celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary that same month. And if Leanne decided to speak up, there was a chance that celebration wouldn’t happen. A chance that her seemingly picture-perfect life would simply dissolve. The truth finally revealed.
And without Dean, without Nora, and soon without her mother…
She would be alone.
Utterly, painfully, irrevocably alone.
But she didn’t want to be sixty-nine like Eleanor, wake up one day, and realize that the next day she may not know who she was. Or that she hadn’t fulfilled a dream she’d put on hold. Even if she didn’t quite know what that dream was. She’d never given herself a chance to figure that out.
That feeling of fear that must have been against her mother’s chest… Leanne suddenly found it hard to breathe. She gripped the steering wheel tight, feeling the blood drain from her face. Her breaths came rapid, her heart pounding, and she started to gasp. Fear itself choking her.
With a sharp turn of the wheel, Leanne sent the Lincoln skidding onto the shoulder, gravel crunching beneath the tires. The car lurched to a stop. She wrenched out the keys and flung the door open, the humid night air slapping her face as she stumbled out and bent over, hands on her knees, gasping for air that refused to come.
“Mom?” Nora’s voice was thick with sleep, but her hand was firm and warm on Leanne’s spine, rubbing gentle circles the way Leanne had once done for her after nightmares.
Leanne closed her eyes. She’d heard that same tone nearly every day since they set out on this road trip. But this time, it landed differently—because this time, it was earned.
“I…I can’t breathe,” Leanne managed, clawing at her neck, trying to force the air in with her own hands.
Nora didn’t flinch. She didn’t panic. She just stayed. Grounded. Present. Her palm moved steadily along Leanne’s back like the metronome of a lullaby.
And slowly, inch by inch, Leanne’s heartbeat began to settle. Her lungs stopped acting like they were trying to climb out of her chest.
“Are you sick?” Nora’s voice cracked.
Leanne shook her head, the tears beginning to sting behind her eyes. “No,” she whispered, her throat hoarse. She stood upright slowly,like a building reassembling itself after an earthquake. “I let my mind get the better of me.”
Nora narrowed her eyes. Didn’t move. She crossed her arms, blocking the path back to the car like a bouncer outside a speakeasy. Her jaw was set in that familiar way that was all Dean—sturdy, unmoving. But her eyes—those wide, waiting, seeing eyes—were pure Eleanor. Not pushing, not accusing. Just…ready.
Leanne could feel the tears start to slip. “I was thinking,” she admitted, “about everything. Your grandmother. Your dad. You. Me.” She gave a wet, humorless laugh. “And I’m terrified. Of waking up at nearly seventy, looking around my perfectly arranged life, and realizing I never lived a single minute of it for myself. That I was so busy trying to hold the seams together, I never stopped to ask if the dress even fit me.”
A breeze rustled the tall pines lining the edge of the highway. Somewhere in the distance, a truck rumbled past.
“You still have time,” Nora said softly. “Grandma’s living proof of that.”
Leanne let out a long, shaky exhale. “I know.”
Leanne glanced at her daughter, seeing a child mirror of her younger self, but braver. “And I’m terrified that I’ve tried to shape you into myself. And I feel like I’ve lost my chance to do something more, to…”
“Well, don’t be.” Nora gave a crooked smile. “I mean, the jury’s still out on whether I have a complex about baking chicken casseroles and setting the table perfectly, but I’ll survive. I’m good. I’m excited for Yale. I’m excited to spread my wings.”
“I’m glad. And I’m sorry,” Leanne said. “If I ever made you feel like you had to live the way I did. Safe. Small. I want more for you.”
“You’ve shown me more,” Nora said. “This trip? You’ve changed. And so have I.”
Leanne tugged her daughter into a hug, burying her face in Nora’s hair. She smelled like rain, wild air, and youth—like summertime beforecurfews, like independence in a bottle. Leanne was transported back to their living room years ago, Nora’s petite frame sitting cross-legged on the carpet while she brushed out her hair in long, patient strokes. They used to make up stories then. Magical ones. About queens and explorers and women who defied the world.
But she didn’t tell her daughter what was really eating her alive.
She didn’t say that she was afraid her marriage was dissolving in slow, quiet increments—that she’d sacrificed her voice on the altar to keep the peace. That Dean had dictated their life so completely, she’d nearly forgotten she had agency at all. That even the timing of their intimacy had never really been her own.
“How did you get so wise?” she whispered into Nora’s hair.
“I’m not wise. I’m just willing to leap.”
“Like your grandmother.”
