“Good.” I smile. “She seemed to. I…” My words die off, as I falter, surprised by what I’d been about to say next, what I genuinely felt, remembering Mia, who kept glancing toward the door, hoping her mom would show up. “I’m sorry you couldn’t make it,” I tell Jen.
“Me, too,” Jen says hoarsely. She bites her lip. Which I realize is trembling. Her eyes are growing wet. Mine widen with alarm. Because, unless I’m way off, I think Jen is about to cry. Hard.
“Come on.” I tip my head toward the hallway, and Jen follows as I lead her to our back door staff exit.
After Jen steps outside, I follow her and shove the door shut behind me. As it lands with athud, Jen bursts into tears.
For a second, I freeze, rooted to the ground.
She’s curled in on herself, shoulders rounded, hands covering her face.
I spring into action, stepping close, setting a hand on her back. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
She shakes her head. I glance around, spotting the pair of wrought iron chairs chained to the trunks of two twin willows Fern planted behind the store when she opened it, and tell Jen, “Come on, sit down.”
Jen lets me guide her to the chairs, dropping onto the edge of one. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. Her hands fall from her face to her lap. Tears stream down her cheeks.
I set a hand on her knee, gentle, tentative. “You don’t need to be sorry.”
She shakes her head, sucking in a breath as she sits up, composing herself. I watch her wipe her cheeks, dab beneath her eyes. “I’m okay.”
I’m quiet for a moment, hesitating, before I tell her, “You don’t have to be.”
Her chin wobbles as she glances my way. “You were really good tonight.”
I’m a bit thrown by the turn in conversation. “Oh. Um, thank you.”
“I know I was quiet, but I was just… really impressed. I was taking it all in—how well you moderated the discussion, encouraged curiosity, engaged people’s perspectives. And when things got heated, you reined it in, moved everyone forward, guided the topic into less amped-up territory.” She smiles tearily. “Command of the classroom is what we call it in teaching circles.”
“I’m familiar,” I tell her. “My mom was a public high school teacher for thirty-five years.” For the first time I make the connection—both Jen and my mother are high school teachers, both mothers to exuberant daughters.
I wonder if, at some subliminal level, that’s why I’ve kept my distance from Jen the past two years. Because I was afraid I’d seemy dynamic with my mother played out again and hurt for Mia, or I’d see something better, something kinder and hurt for myself.
“Really?” Jen’s smile deepens. “Me, too.”
I nod. “I know.”
“Not for thirty-five years, of course,” she says quietly. She peers down at Mia’s sweater in her hands, then opens it up from the ball she’d crumpled it into and folds it neatly. “That’s a long time.”
“Especially given she taughtmath.” I shudder.
Jen laughs faintly. “I could never.”
“Me neither, but she loved it. I think she would have kept teaching until she kicked the bucket, if they let her.”
Jen swallows thickly, smoothing her hands along Mia’s now-folded sweater. “Maybe I’ll feel that way one day. But right now, I feel like I can barely manage it. Being a mom and a teacher is… a lot harder than I expected.” She dabs beneath her eyes again. “Teaching took a lot out of me before I had Mia, and I figured it would be more demanding after she was born, but I had no idea…” She huffs a breathy, sad laugh. “I hadnoidea.”
It feels like raging inside me is one of those tornado warnings that was a staple of my life growing up in the Midwest, one that built in volume as it slid up in pitch, a harsh, wailing siren.
Jen glances over at me. “Maybe your mom’s told you that, too?”
I shake my head slowly. “My mom and I… don’t talk much. And when we do, we don’t talk about the past.”
“Why?”
I almost tell Jen that’s none of her business. But something stops me.
“Because the past wasn’t great. Because I was a handful; and she was drained after pouring so much into her teaching, herstudents; and my dad wasn’t very present, so she basically had to raise me on her own, and that made for a not-so-fun first eighteen years of life with Thea Meyer.”