All of Me

five • our normal

• • •

The one class Gray and I have on a Wednesday morning alternates each week and today we're free until our four o'clock lecture, which means an extra half-day at home in the middle of the week. It's not a ton, but it's such a relief to wake up and realize I don't have to be in the car in thirty minutes.

I want to have a lie-in but that's impossible now that my body's wired to this routine. I've never been one to sleep in late, after four years of high school kicking my butt with seven o'clock starts and helping my parents in the store on weekends. Now it's the college commute that gets me up, and I'm just glad I don't have any classes that start at nine.

I wake up at seven and despite my best efforts, I can only sleep in until eight before my brain snaps awake again and I'm dragged from the comfort of my bed ten minutes later by the smell of cooking. Mom's making breakfast and in addition to the usual aromas of toast and coffee, I smell bacon.

When I stumble down to the kitchen in my pyjamas and a sports bra – it's too uncomfortable to be loose – my stomach rumbles at the sight of her cracking eggs into a pan and flipping sizzling rashers. It may be simple but Dad was always the cook. Mom rarely made more than a sandwich. We lived off toast and cereal for the first few months, but she's stepping up her game.

"Morning, honey!" She pours me a glass of orange juice and when the coffee machine lets out a gurgle to let her know it's out of water and the pot is full, she pours herself a coffee. Not even a drop of milk or sugar. I can't stand the taste even when it's blitzed beyond recognition with creamer and sweetener, but she takes it black.

"Morning," I say, stifling a yawn.

Mom gives me a hug and kisses my cheek and I catch a waft of her perfume. The second the scent hits my nostrils, I'm thrown to a thousand different moments in time as though a bomb has gone off in my soul and shattered my memories. Mom's worn the same perfume all her life, but I haven't smelled it in months.

It's almost enough to bring a tear to my eye. I'm struck by a strange sense of homesickness that rocks my body like a tidal wave, even standing right there next to Mom, and it takes a moment to realize it's nostalgia.

"Are you alright, honey?" she asks when she pulls away and sees my expression.

"Yeah, yeah. Just tired," I say as I drop into a seat at the table. We're not used to having so much more space than our apartment and while there's a dining room next door, we haven't used it yet. Everything happens around the slightly rickety table we found at a Goodwill the next town over.

"This'll perk you up." She gestures to the full breakfast she's putting together, even with a selection of cheese in the middle of the table from the deli in town. While I'm off in South Lakes all day, she's building relationships with the locals. Though she's never been one to have friends, she's a pro networker.

"What's all this for?"

"Well, I know you don't have class until later and I don't have work until noon, so I thought we could get the day off to a good start," she says, dropping a few pieces of bread into the toaster. "I don't want to waste the morning when I see so little of you, bogárkám."

When she turns around, she brushes her hair off her face and gives me a sunny smile, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. For a brief moment I can see the agony that laces her irises. There's nothing physical about her pain, which only makes it worse.

I wish there was something I could do to help. I wish there was anything I could do, except be here. And I'm not even here much. I don't know what to say; I don't know how she's coping; I don't know if my feelings relate when I lost my dad but she lost her husband. I don't know what the difference means or what it feels like, but I know how to hug her.