She slips the phone back into her apron pocket. There’s a dusting of flour on her forehead and some in her short Afro, making it look like she suddenly went gray.
“You giving away more books?” she asks.
I nod.
“You used to love them,” she says. The way she says it, you’d think I was setting them on fire instead of donating them to the library.
I meet her eyes. It feels like maybe we’re having a moment. If she’s willing to talk about me giving away my books, then maybe she’s willing to talk about something real, like Dad and the divorce and how things have been since.
“Mom—” I begin.
But she shifts her eyes from mine, wipes her hands down the front of her apron and interrupts me. “Danica and I are going to make brownies,” she says. “Come down and help us.”
The baking’s new. She started the day Dad moved out of our old house, and she hasn’t stopped since. If she’s not on shift at the hospital, she’s baking.
“I’m meeting Martin and Sophie and Cassidy tonight. We’re supposed to start planning our road trip.”
“You spend more time out of the house than in it these days,” she says.
I never know what to do when she says something like that. It’s not a question and not an accusation, but it has a little bit of both in it. Instead of answering, I stare at her apron. It readsKiss the Cookand has a drawing of two enormous red lips smacking.
It’s true that I’m not home much these days. The thought of spending the next few hours baking with her and my sister, Danica, fills me not with despair exactly, but something close to it. Danica will be dressed perfectly for the occasion—avintage-style apron with a matching chef’s hat that sits in the middle of her Afro poufs. She’ll talk about her latest boyfriend, who she is (very) excited about. Mom will tell gory emergency room stories and insist on playing reggae music, something old-school like Peter Tosh or Jimmy Cliff. Or—if Danica gets her way—they’ll play trip-hop while Danica documents the whole thing for social media. They’ll both pretend that everything is just completely okay with our family.
Everything is not okay.
Mom sighs again and rubs her forehead. The flour dust spreads.
“There’s flour,” I say, reaching to wipe it away.
She dodges my hand. “Leave it. It’s just going to keep getting dirty anyway.” Mom’s originally from Jamaica. She moved here when she was fourteen with Grandma and Grandpa. The only time she has a Jamaican accent is when she’s nervous or upset. Right now her accent is slight, but it’s there.
She turns and goes back downstairs.
As I get dressed, I try not to think about our not-quite-an-argument but end up thinking about it anyway. Why was she so upset with me for giving away the last of my romance books? It’s like she’s disappointed in me for not being the same person I was a year ago.
But of course I’m not the same person. How could I be? I wish I were as unaffected by the divorce as she and Danica are. I wish I could bake with them, carefree. I wish I could go back to being the girl who thought her parents, especially her dad, could do no wrong. To being the girl who hoped to have a love just like theirs when she grew up. I used to believe in happily-ever-afters because they had one.
I want to go back and unknow all the things I know now.
But you can’t unknow things.
I can’t unknow that Dad cheated on Mom.
I can’t unknow that he left us all for another woman.
Mom misses the version of me that used to love those books.
I miss her too.
CHAPTER 2
(Former) Favorite Romance Genres
Contemporary
Enemies to Lovers—Asking the perennial question will they kill each other or will they kiss each other? I’m kidding. Of course they’re going to kiss.
