Amanda looked at her. ‘That’s what my mom used to call me. How funny.’
Diana smiled. ‘You do look very cheeky though.’
‘I was very cheeky – I still can be.’ Amanda smiled at Diana fondly. She was starting to care for the older woman. Her generosity with the house was one thing but her kindness to Simon was another, and being open to the gardening club.
‘I see you’re becoming friends with Janet. She’s great, isn’t she?’
‘She is a lovely woman, and so is Carole. They came together later in life, when Carole had a reckoning about who she really was. Very brave to be true to herself and her feelings. It’s not easy when people can be so short-sighted.’
Amanda patted her hand. ‘Good on you – you’re an ally,’ she said.
‘An ally?’ Diana asked.
‘An ally is someone who supports a marginalised community. It could be a person of colour, or someone with a different sexual identity.’
‘Oh lovely, I suppose I am an ally then,’ Diana said, seemingly pleased with the title.
Amanda flicked through some more photos, showing Diana when she started school, Halloween costumes and her prom.
‘You look lovely,’ said Diana, peering at Amanda in the 1950s-style prom dress.
‘It was vintage,’ said Amanda. ‘Mom helped me fix it as it was ripped at the bodice when I got it. She sewed it with the tiniest stiches, like a little mouse.’
Diana smiled. ‘So your mother was creative?’
‘Very,’ Amanda said. ‘She said New York helped her be creative. It was the city of possibilities, although it was less like that for me.’
‘Why was that?’ Diana asked.
Amanda sighed, trying to think how to explain how New York made her feel.
‘Mom always wanted to live in New York she told me, ever since she was a child. She loved the hustle but I never relaxed. My favourite times were when we went to the beach at the cape and just hung out. That’s when I would draw and think and paint.’
‘How does it feel being here?’ asked Diana, gesturing to everything around her. ‘I don’t want it to be a source of stress for you.’
‘I feel nothing but joy here,’ she said. Her hand instinctively reached out and held the older woman’s hand. ‘This is the first time I have thought about painting since Mom got sick. I have even started sketching some pictures for a book that she wrote. We were going to do something with it and then the diagnosis happened and everything stopped.’
‘Your mother wrote a book?’ Diana seemed surprised.
‘She worked as a court stenographer but her life outside of her job was filled with ideas and decorating and cooking and dancing and singing and more. She was always learning something new.’
Diana was listening intently.
‘I wonder sometimes,’ Amanda said, ‘if she tried to do everything because she knew her time was limited.’
Diana smiled gently. ‘Sometimes we tell ourselves what we need to hear, just so we can get through to the next day.’
Amanda nodded, suddenly feeling tears well up. She hadn’t looked at photos of her mom like this in a while. Remembering hurt, yet it was a pain tempered with such deep love it made her throat clench as the tears sprang.
‘I’m sorry, I just miss her,’ she said to Diana who in turn patted her hand.
‘I understand, more than you know.’
And Amanda thought perhaps Diana did know and wondered what had happened to her in her past.
19
Simon
