“You’ve been doing a lot of that lately.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“The trips you keep trying to buy me.”
I opened my mouth.
“The classes. The clothes. Pushing me to date.”
“Mom, I just want you to have things after everything you gave up.”
“I know.”
She smiled.
“But you don’t owe me a happy ending, Jean.”
For years, I had been trying to balance a ledger Mom had never opened.
Every sacrifice.
Every extra shift.
Every pair of boots she returned so I could have something instead.
Every time she told me she was fine when she wasn’t.
“You gave up so much for me, Mom.”
“And I’d do it again.”
She smiled.
“But my life isn’t your debt.”
That sentence hit me harder than I expected.
I realized I had spent years trying to repay something she had never asked me to repay.
Mom had sacrificed for me because she loved me.
Not because she wanted to own the rest of my choices.
I looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
She squeezed my hand.
“You don’t have to be.”
Then she smiled toward Marcus.
“And for the record, I’m not coming second.”
“No?”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“Marcus had a life before me. So did I.”
Then she smiled.
“We’re meeting in the middle, that’s all.”
Marcus suddenly brightened.
“Speaking of accomplishments…”
He carefully twisted a tiny tomato from the vine and held it out to Mom.
It was small, crooked, and mostly orange.
Mom stared at it.
“That’s pathetic.”
“I raised that.”
“You interfered with nature until it surrendered, Marcus.”
“I don’t need this hostility.”
I laughed so hard I had to wipe my eyes.
Marcus picked up a small hand shovel and tossed it toward me.
I barely caught it.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
He pointed toward an empty strip of soil beside Mom’s volunteer plot.
“Plant something.”
“What?”
“Something you’d like to see later.”
I looked at the empty patch of dirt.
Mom was already kneeling beside it.
“Anything?”
“Within reason,” Marcus said.
“Ella vetoed my watermelon proposal.”
“You had six square feet.”
“Dream killer.”
Mom handed me a packet of seeds from the gardening box.
I read the label.
“Will these survive neglect?”
“Plastic survives neglect,” Marcus said.
Mom nudged him aside.
“Don’t listen to him. He murdered basil.”
“Allegedly!”
I crouched beside her.
