“I just don’t want to waste your money if it’s something I’m never going to get any better at,” Imogen said, sitting down at the end of the couch.
“I appreciate you taking our finances so seriously—that’s a very grown-up approach—but my question would be, do you enjoy it?”
Imogen smiled. “Yes, I guess I do.”
“Then you’ll continue until such time as you don’t, deal?”
“Sure.” Imogen nodded and sipped her tea. “So, what did you do with your free evening?”
“Oh, I kept myself busy,” Rosa managed to say. She used the mug to cover the blush blooming on her cheeks. “This is a very good cup of tea.”
Imogen’s eyes lit up. “You think so? I mean, that’s good, right?”
“Always good to have excellent tea-making skills.” Rosa grinned, relieved to have moved the subject away from her evening’s activities.
“So, Georgia said if I want to, I can do a few shifts at the café?”
“What about your exams?”
“I’m well ahead on all my coursework, and we can do homework and any revision in the quiet moments. Plus, Robbie would be working too, so we can revise together. And obviously, I’ll be earning my own money, and you won’t have to keep giving me pocket money—”
“Okay,” Rosa laughed, “take a breath. If you think you can manage, then I trust you. But if there’s any sense your studies are suffering, we revisit this and have another conversation.”
“Yes, thanks, Mum. I knew you’d be cool about it.” Imogen pulled her legs up and crossed them. “I feel like I’m in this weirdin-between space where I’m still a kid, but I’m one foot into being an adult.”
Rosa smiled. “It’s weird for me too. You’ll forever be my baby girl, and yet every day I look at you and see the wonderful young woman you’re becoming, and I know that I have to let you find your way, and it’s so hard to let go of that little girl who used to sit in my lap and let me sing nursery rhymes to her.”
“I’ll always need you, Mum. It’s not like I’m growing up and going away.”
“I know, but you will. One day, when you’ve worked it all out, that’s what you’ll do—because that’s the young woman I’ve raised you to be.” She nodded to herself. “Someone brave enough to step out on her own, to know herself and what she wants from life, and to reach for it.”
Imogen frowned. “What if I get it wrong…make all the wrong choices?”
“Then you’ll learn from it and try again. That’s life—it’s never perfect. Sometimes we need a second go of it to get it right.” She thought of Billy and how true that was.
As though reading her mind, Imogen said, “Bit like Billy then?”
Rosa stiffened.Did Imogen know?
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you know…things in her life weren’t easy for her, and she had to learn a lot about herselfandlife. Now she’s better and working it all out.”
Rosa smiled, relieved. She wasn’t ready to havethatconversation yet. “Yes, I guess so.”
“I mean, she’s overcome a lot, right? And she’s much better now.”
“Yes, she is,” Rosa agreed. Imogen’s eyes narrowed, just like Billy’s did when she had a big question on her mind. “What do you want to ask?”
“I dunno… I guess I don’t really have many memories of Billy from when I was small, and I wonder what she was like back then.”
It was a question Rosa had expected a myriad of times over the years. She softened, ready to answer—after all, she’d been thinking much the same herself recently. “Billy has always been fun,” Rosa began. “We’d go dancing for hours, sometimes not getting home until the sun had risen, and breakfast was a quick trip to the café before we’d get to bed.”
Imogen’s jaw dropped.
“I know, shocking, right?” Rosa laughed. “Your mothers actually had a life.” She sat up straighter. “When I was pregnant with you, she’d sit for hours just reading you stories, rubbing my belly and telling you about all the things she planned for you to do together.”
“Like what things?”
