Going Anyway

Mother's Day

Sunday, May 14

For Mother's Day, we usually get together with Aunt Heather, Uncle Tom, and my cousin, Kari. This year was no different.

I am pretty close to all three of them because they all still live here in my town. Tom and Heather work at the bank. (Stacey, my sister did not rob their bank. Yes, she really did rob a bank.) Kari works at City Hall. She's only 23.

We met at a restaurant right here in town for lunch. We had a good time. Tom's mom is buried two hours away, and my grandparents are buried four hours away so, so we didn't go visit them. We put flowers on my mom's grave though, which is also here in town.

After that, we went back to Heather and Tom's house for pie.

Ava ate too much at lunch, even though I warned her, so Heather had her go lay down upstairs in their bedroom.

I sat down on their couch in between Tom and Kari while Heather started cutting the pie. I let out a long sigh.

"Today's been tough," Kari said. She lost her grandma a few weeks ago.

I looked at her. "Yeah, I can relate to that."

"What has Ava said about it today?" Tom asked quietly, probably not wanting to talk about his mom.

"Not a whole lot."

"Does she ask about Stacey a whole lot though?" Kari asked.

"Eh, not a lot, but it's not out of the ordinary when she randomly mentions her mom. She knows she can't see her until she's 18, but hasn't expressed a whole of of interest in that anyway."

"Does she ask about your mom ever?" Kari pried kinda.

I shook my head. "No, not really. I tend to push away questions about my mom."

"You don't like talking about your mom a whole lot," Tom stated, folding his arms.

"You would understand now." I looked at him.

"But I talk about her still, and I'm okay with the fact she's gone." He wasn't being critical, and he had a good point.

I bit my lip as I took in his words. We don't really talk about this stuff a whole lot. "It's not like that."

"I am totally out of line for asking this," Heather said, walking in, "but why don't you like talking about your mom?"

Is that even a question?

I folded my hands, staring at the coffee table in front of me. "I'm not proud of where I came from." I forced myself to meet Heather's eyes, knowing I probably shouldn't have announced that, but she asked.

I could see the pain in her face. She pressed her lips together. "You deserved better."

"I know," I said weakly. "But it is what it is. I turned out okay, and hopefully Ava will, too."

Sometimes I wonder if I actually turned out okay. I mean, I hang out with middle schoolers all day.

Tom put a hand my shoulder. "We're proud of you and everything you've done for this town."

I rolled my eyes. "Please don't remind me that I'm leaving."

Kari wrapped an arm around me. "But you'll do great things up in Iowa, too."

I just gave her a weak smile.

Then Tom said something funny and everything was back to normal.

But today was hard.