Could she tell?

I wasn’t waiting to find out. “I really do have a lot of work to do,” I said then, taking another step up. The stair squeaked.

She read my expression, and my voice, and my urgency, and I could see her mentally back off. She’d gone too far, she suddenly realized. Tried too hard. Violated the essential rule of human relations that if you chase too hard, everyone eventually runs away. “Of course,” she said, taking a step backwards. “Not tonight. To be continued.”

“Or not,” I said.

She saw her mistake. In trying to pull me closer, she’d pushed me away. She met my eyes one last time and gave a sad smile. “Now I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

I’d already turned away. I paused and looked over. “What work?”

“Getting you to change your mind about love.”

I shrugged, like I was sorry to break it to her. “I’ll never change my mind,” I said. “I know too much.”

“Maybe you don’t know enough.”

Why wouldn’t she just let me go upstairs? I let the irritation in my voice leak out. “Just look around at the world—at the lonely and the cheated on. The violent. The abandoned. I know exactly what people do to each other. I’ve seen enough ruined lives to last forever.”

“None of that is what I’m talking about,” she said. “None of that is love.”

“There’s conquest, and there’s status, and there’s porn. Love is something girls invented so they could feel better about it.”

I’d shocked her. Good. “If that’s what you truly believe,” she said, “then I feel so sad for you.”

“I feel sad for all the women out there dragging their boyfriends to Bed Bath & Beyond and making them shop for throw pillows. They want the fantasy more than they want the truth.”

“What’s the truth?” she challenged.

“The truth is that love doesn’t exist.”

I meant for that moment to be my win—I meant it to convey to her that whatever it was she remembered of me, or expected of me, or wanted from me, it wasn’t happening. We weren’t going to watch It’s a Wonderful Life and be besties. We weren’t going to talk about boys or braid each other’s hair or treat this whole long year like a slumber party. That one fierce statement was meant to settle how things were going to be.

The girl she remembered was gone.

My mother should have nodded, looked down, and given up. But she didn’t. If anything, the words seemed to spark more resistance in her.

She stood up a little straighter and looked me over like she was really seeing me for the first time all day. Then she said, “Sounds like you just threw down a challenge to the universe, lady.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” she said, looking a little triumphant, “that you clearly, obviously, any second now, are just about to fall in love.”

Eight

WAY TOO MUCH conversation. I spent the next two days fiercely avoiding my mother.

No easy feat in a house the size of a shoe box.

I skipped dinner. I went for runs. I made “visual inspections” of the town of Lillian. I did the grocery shopping and picked up a lavender neck pillow for Diana at the pharmacist.

When I did interact with her, helping her on the stairs, say, I kept my interactions short, polite, and action oriented. I would not have another conversation like that with her. I hadn’t come here for therapy, or to have my mind changed—about anything. I’d only come here because I had no choice.

Basically, I was just holding it together until I could start my first shift at work.

I had already timed the drive from Rockport to Lillian, twice, and scouted the station so I’d know how to get there. I’d been to HR downtown to fill out reams of paperwork, get fingerprinted, and pick up my mask, gear, and uniform—both dress and everyday—and make everything official. I picked up my brass nameplate and my ID badge with my firefighter/paramedic designation.

Then, the morning of my first day, I set three alarms for four thirty so I’d have no chance of being late.

I followed Captain Harris’s instructions to the letter: no makeup, no jewelry, no cleavage. I even made an attempt at “no boobs” by clamping mine down with a bra that was part spandex, part corset. I put my hair in a low, decidedly unbouncy bun at the back of my neck. Actually, it wasn’t even a bun; it was more like a wad. I just wrapped the ponytail holder as many times around it as it would stretch. Message: I care about my appearance exactly as little as a guy.

I even hesitated on the ChapStick because when I took off the cap, the wax looked slightly pink.

When I left the house at sunrise, Diana was also up, sitting meditation-style out on a bench in the garden, eyes closed, face turned to the breeze riding in from the ocean. She wore a silk kimono, and she had a different eye patch on. This one was red with cherry blossoms. In two days, I’d never once seen her without one.

I opened the back door, but she didn’t hear me.

“I’m heading out,” I called.

She turned and opened that one eye. “At this ungodly hour?”

“You’re up,” I said.

“Not by choice.”

“Insomnia?”

“Something like that.”

“What are you doing?”

“Breathing.”

I squinted at her, like, Um. We’re all breathing.

“Meditating,” she corrected.

“Oh,” I said. “That doesn’t sound as good as sleeping.”

“It has its upsides.”

“Do you need anything before I go?”

She gave a little head shake. “I’m good. If I get in a fix, I’ll call Josie next door. Her husband travels for work all the time, so we look out for each other.”

I couldn’t help but note that there’d been no mention of Josie back when Diana had been pressuring me to move here. But it was fine. Great. Backup. Less to worry about.

Time to get moving.

“It’s crochet club again tomorrow night, in case you’d like to come.”

I gave her a look. “That’s a nope.”

“See you tomorrow, then,” she said. Then she winked her good eye at me and said, “Have fun.”

* * *

I ARRIVED A half hour early and waited in my truck until it was time to go in, not wanting to look overeager.

At quarter to six, I grabbed my gear and reported to Captain Murphy’s office.

I’d never walked into a firehouse cold like this before. Every job I’d had, I’d eased into. I’d known some guys who worked there, or I’d been encouraged to join by someone on the crew. It’s one thing to be invited somewhere, but it’s quite another to just show up.

My stomach felt tight. This was the moment of truth. This was the moment when I’d find out exactly how much I’d given up by moving here—and if I could ever get it back. As strange as it sounds, friends, apartments, and even cities were all replaceable. But the job—this particular job—held something for me that I couldn’t find anywhere else. It gave me access to my favorite part of myself. That calm, centered person who knew exactly what to do.