The work was mostly reading documents in two languages and writing memos in a third.
It had not been a quiet year.
My first ceremonial assignment had been a minor-dragon weddingin Tacoma that October. Yuki had not sent me because the wedding was important. She sent me because the rite involved an American national marrying into a clan family on U.S. soil, and protocol required Ashenmere to send a liaison officer who was also an American national.
I sat at the back, took nine pages of notes, and did not cause an international incident, which Yuki later described as “a promising start.”
In the hallway after the reception, the bride’s mother asked if I was the woman from the State Department news.
“I was,” I said.
She looked me over for a moment. “You look happier now,” she said. Then she walked away before I could decide what to do with that.
Mama called that night, between home-care visits, to ask whether I had eaten. The call lasted forty-six minutes. We talked about a recipe, which was how my mother said the things she did not know how to say directly.
She had accepted my life.
Mama adjusted the shoulder again. “Sí. Ahora sí.”
“Thank you, Mama.”
She looked at me in the mirror.
She did not say anything for a long count.
Then she said, in English, “The Norwegian one is very polite.”
“Yes.”
“Too polite.”
“Also yes.”
“But he watches you when you are not looking.”
I met her eyes in the mirror.
“And the other one,” she said. “He says almost nothing.”
“No.”
“But he listens.”
My throat tightened before I could stop it. “Yes.”
Mama turned me away from the mirror and faced me herself.
“Mija,” she said quietly. “Te ves descansada.”
The last time my mother had told me I looked rested, I had been young enough to believe rest was something that simply happened to people.
“Yes, Mama,” I said. “I am.”
She touched the sleeve once more, though there was nothing left to fix.
“Por fin.”Finally.
She kissed me, once, at my temple where my mother had been kissing me since I was four, and didn’t say anything else.