Another shrug. “Depends on the day.” And it did. “A couple mornings, I’ve woken up and been sure I wanted to contact her. I have so many questions, you know?” She glanced at Shea, who nodded. “And then the anger will creep in, and I think, no. Fuck her. She gets no part of me, not even my rage. And around and around I go.”
“What does Ellis think?”
“She supports whatever I want to do. I’ve told her I’m gonna call, and she says okay and to let her know if I want her to be there. And then I tell her I chickened out, and she says okay and to let her know if I want her to be there.”
Shea smiled. “Sounds like she’s being very careful not to push you one way or the other.”
“She is.” Cherry knew that. Was grateful for it. Most of the time. “I guess there are times when I wish shewouldpush. I feel like I need somebody, anybody, to just tell me what to do. You know?”
“I do.” Shea shifted in her seat, almost like she was weighing what she had to say. When her eyes met Cherry’s, there was a softness there, and her love was clear. “But you know we can’t do that, right? That this is up to you and only you? And that we’ll support you either way? Because we love you?”
Surprised to feel her eyes well up, Cherry swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded vigorously. Because she did know that. She didknow how lucky she was to have people who cared so much about her. Supremely lucky.
If only one of them would point her in the right direction because she was stuck.
* * *
“And she just showed up out of the blue?” Evan’s eyes were wide as he listened to Ellis tell the story of Cherry’s mom. “Like, no warning or anything? After how many years?”
“I think, like, twenty-eight or nine?” Ellis scrunched up her nose as she tried to remember the math. “She said she was barely past being a toddler when her mom left.”
Evan frowned and shook his head. “Ugh. Man, how do you do that? How do you just leave your kid?” He was sitting in Michaela’s room with her, his feet propped up on the wide windowsill, crossed at the ankle, while he waited for Kendra to finish her shift.
“I don’t know.” She joined him in the head shaking. “I don’t understand it.” And she didn’t. Her heart ached for little toddling Cherry Davis, who had no idea her mother would just disappear one day and leave her. “I mean, my mom’s gone, too, but she didn’t choose to leave. That’s the difference.”
“That’s a huge difference.” Evan snorted a sarcastic laugh. “I don’t have kids—”
“Yet,” Ellis added with a grin.
“Yet. But I can tell you right now as I sit here, I will sure as shit never abandon them. Not on purpose.”
“Same.”
Evan took a moment. “I’m trying to decide if she gets points for trying now.” He pursed his lips. “You said she’s been coming into the diner?”
With a nod, Ellis said, “Yeah, but I’m not sure for how long. We just considered her a regular, you know?” She shrugged. “I didn’t think anything of it. Nobody did. She always had a book, and I thought she was just a woman who needed to get away from her house to read.” It sounded kind of silly now, she knew.
“When she was actually scoping things out.”
“Evidently.” Ellis sighed. “I wish I’d been there when she madeher move.” She hadn’t told anybody else about that weekend, seeing Cherry and Purple Hair—what the hell was her name again?—and she’d pretty much put it out of her mind since then. But she did wish she’d been in the diner the morning Cherry’s mom had decided that was the day she was going to approach her, that she’d been there to offer support. Coulda, shoulda, woulda, as her father would say. She mentally shrugged.
“I guess she gets a little bit of credit for that. Like, she didn’t just pop in, all,Hi, remember me? The mother who left you when you were little?” Evan made a face. “Though, she kinda did exactly that.”
“Right? Just because she took the time to prepare…”
“Cherry didn’t get any.”
Ellis pointed at him. “That.”
Kendra walked in then, her pace quick as it always was, but her aura calm. Even when she looked thoroughly exhausted—like she did then—she was still relaxing for Ellis to be around. It was a true gift.
“What are we talking about?” Kendra asked, her bags over her shoulder, her white uniform still looking fresh, even after a nine-hour day.
“The mom,” Evan told her with wide eyes.
Kendra nodded, as Ellis had already given her the gist. “Yeah, that’s a piece of work right there, isn’t it?” She shifted her dark gaze to Ellis. “What’s she gonna do? She decide yet?”
Shaking her head, she told her no.
