The Mothers(44)

“Who cares what Mrs. Sheppard thinks?” Mo said. “She’s not your mother.”

“Neither are you,” Aubrey said. She’d felt gratified at first, but later, she felt sick, picturing the way her sister’s dark eyes had widened and filled. Her eyes weren’t one of the features they shared, inherited from their mother. Aubrey’s eyes were her father’s, a man neither of them knew. When she was young, Aubrey had cried when she first learned that they were only half sisters. It’s okay, her sister had told her, because I love you twice as much.

“Whose wedding is it?” Nadia had said over the phone that night.

“Mine.”

“And who gets to be the wedding dictator?”

“Me.”

“Thank you. If Mo doesn’t want to talk to her, she doesn’t have to. But it’s your wedding and you should invite whoever the hell you want. Life is short and if you want to see your mom again, you should.”

Aubrey dug her fingernails into her palm. She used to do this often when she first moved in with her sister. A bad thought appeared, and she made a fist, squeezing as hard as she could. Her sister would always grab her hands and rub them between hers, like they were just cold. On the edge of her bed, she opened her palm, watching the tiny, clear crescents turn red.

“You there?” Nadia said. Her voice sounded farther away.

“I’m sorry,” Aubrey said. She hadn’t even realized how insensitive it was to ask Nadia whether she should invite her mother.

“Why’re you apologizing? You didn’t kill her.”

“Still.”

“Don’t, okay?”

“Don’t what?”

“Treat me like some poor sad girl.”

“I’m not.” Aubrey paused. “I wish I could’ve known your mom.”

“Me too,” Nadia said.

Aubrey wondered if they were the only ones who felt they didn’t know their mothers. Maybe mothers were inherently vast and unknowable.

“How’s Michigan?” she asked.

“Cold as fuck. It’s still snowing. Can you believe that?”

“That’s what you get for wanting seasons.”

“Fuck that. Seasons are overrated.”

She liked listening to Nadia’s adventures in Michigan, how that first winter, her friends from Chicago had taken her to a Von Maur to find a coat and boots, how they’d laughed at her for being so fascinated with the Midwestern department store where a live pianist played as she slipped her feet into fuzzy boots. She had only fallen on ice once, her sophomore year on the way to a party, and she was proud that she’d caught herself with the hand that wasn’t holding the beer. Nadia had lived in other places too. Her summer internship in Madison at the state capitol, her semester abroad at Oxford, where she took weekend trips to Edinburgh and Berlin, how in Paris, she’d gotten caught by the Metro doors slamming shut on her backpack and a crowd of annoyed Parisians had to yank her free. Aubrey loved that story, the idea that the unflinchingly cool Nadia Turner would be so awkward in one of the most sophisticated cities on the planet. Maybe you didn’t know who you would be in the world. Maybe you were a different person everywhere you lived.

“Tell me your England story again,” she said, “about the boat.”

A punt, Nadia had explained when she’d e-mailed her. She and some friends had gone punting on the River Cherwell. She had been the only one brave enough to steer the punt because the other girls were intimidated by stories of the pole getting stuck in the mud along the riverbank and the boat overturning. So Nadia had steered while everyone drank Pimm’s and champagne, herself drinking more than she probably should have because it was so hot. She was tipsy and tired from pushing the pole, but she’d steered the punt the entire time, passing under the leafy trees. She did not flip the boat once. It was, Nadia had written, one of the best days of her life.

Over the phone, Nadia let out a low laugh. Aubrey imagined her in her Michigan apartment, sitting by a window, watching the snow fall.

—

A WEEK BEFORE her best friend’s wedding, Nadia came home.

She leaned toward the window as the plane descended through the springtime fog. Spiky tops of palm trees emerged, then the red Spanish rooftops that covered every home. The houses had been the first thing she noticed when she landed in Michigan—white with slate roofs, like the homes she’d only seen in movies, not tan stucco topped with wavy red. In the San Diego Airport bathroom, she fixed her hair while two women spoke Spanish beside her, and even though she could only understand snatches of words, she felt grateful for the familiar foreign sound.

When she stepped outside the terminal, her father waved from the curb. He was hard to miss—the only man nearby in a truck. She didn’t wave back but she started toward him, dragging her suitcase and balancing her coffee. She was wearing huge sunglasses, even though the sky was cloudy, and she felt cheated by the overcast sky, as if the city had known the sunshine was one thing she was looking forward to and had denied her of it anyway. As she neared, her father climbed out of his truck to help her with her bag. They smiled at each other, tentatively, as if both were afraid the other might not smile back.

“Well, look who it is,” he said.

“Hi Dad.”

He reached out to hug her and she hugged him back, an awkward, one-armed hug so she didn’t spill her coffee. He looked the same but a little older, his skin more wrinkled, his hair sprinkled with more gray. She wondered who cut his hair now.