Cherry took a deep breath, her dark eyes cloudy with emotion. “I was at the diner this morning. You were not.” She held up a finger. “Which is an entirely different story that we’ll circle back to, but for now, I was at the diner this morning.”
She grimaced, knowing she’d have to explain herself and okay with that. “And?”
“It was later in the morning, so it had cleared out and left just us regulars.”
Ellis nodded, picturing the scene.
“Today, it was me and the lady with the short light red hair. You know the one I mean?”
“The book lady?” She nodded.
“She came up to talk to me.” Cherry’s face flushed, and her eyes darted. “Told me her name was Lila and that she…” She cleared her throat, very obviously having trouble continuing her story. Ellis set her wine down and reached for Cherry’s hand, squeezed it, hoping to give her some strength. “She told me she’s my mom.”
Lots of blinking happened then. Staring and blinking. A coupleholy shits because what the hell do you say to something like that?
“Oh, my God, Cherry,” Ellis finally managed. “Oh my God. That’s…that’s crazy.”
“She said she’d been coming into the diner for weeks just hoping to work up the nerve to talk to me.”
“How did she know to find you there?”
“I mean, she did a lot of other searching first, but she’s been kind of following me for a while now.”
“Following or stalking?”
Cherry paused, frowned. “Both, I guess?” She picked up her wine and took a huge swallow. “I am so confused, Ellis. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to feel. I don’t know what she wants—I mean, she says she only wanted to meet me, maybe get to know me.” Those deep brown eyes found hers and held them, implored. “Why now? What does she want?”
“I think…” Ellis looked down at the one hand she was still holding. “Did you ask her that?”
A big exhale. “No. I honestly didn’t talk to her for very long, I was too freaked. She gave me her number, so I can call her if I want to, but Jesus Christ, Ellis, what should I do? The woman left me before I was even in school. And now she’s back? Now? I’m thirty-two years old. She certainly took her time.” Another sigh, complete with shoulders going up, then dropping. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, you don’t have to do anything. Right?” Ellis spoke slowly, rolling her thoughts around as she did. “How was it left? Just that you’d contact her if you wanted to?”
Cherry nodded, the wetness that had filled her eyes spilled over, and Ellis had never seen anything she wanted to fix more than that. Cherry crying sliced at her heart.
“Oh, sweetie, it’s okay. We’ll figure it out. Come here.” She opened her arms, and Cherry moved into them. Ellis held her tightly, rocking them back and forth in a gentle, easy rhythm, and Cherry silently cried in her arms.
Time ticked by. Nugget walked across both of them before deciding he’d stretch out across the back of the couch, and still Ellis held Cherry, the only sounds slight sniffles from Cherry and gentle soothing noises from Ellis.
Finally, Cherry sat up and Ellis loosened her grip. She reached for the box of tissues on the coffee table and held it in Cherry’s direction so she could pull one out and blow her nose. After taking in a slow, deep breath and letting it out, Cherry turned to her. “I’m so sorry for dragging you back here from—” She shook her head. “I don’t even know where you were.”
“Cleveland.”
A look of surprise, followed by a furrowed brow. “What’s in Cleveland?”
“My aunt and uncle. I hadn’t seen them in a long time, and I was missing them, so I decided to make a road trip.” She braced.
“Without telling me at all.”
There it was.
Ellis grimaced. “Yeah. I’m sorry about that. That was wrong. And selfish.”
“I mean, you could’ve just said.” Cherry seemed a bit more relaxed now, probably just glad to be talking about a different topic than her surprise mom. “I mean, I get that we’re new, and we haven’t really talked about any boundaries, so I can’t be too mad. But it did feel kind of weird.”
Ellis nodded. She needed to address the purple-haired chick, but this was not the day to do that. Cherry had enough on her plate, and seriously, she’d called her—not Purple Hair—when she was in need of a shoulder, and that said a lot, didn’t it? “So, how do you feel? About your mom showing up? Not that I’m sure I should even call her that. Lila. Like, what did you say when she told you? I’m trying to imagine.”
Cherry took a deep breath as if clearing out the emotion and trying to recall the moment. “It’s weird because it’s all gone sort of blurry. We made eye contact across the diner, and then she stood up and walked toward me and sat down across from me.”
