Vanilla. Megan Hart

back from the bathroom with suspiciously red eyes that made me feel bad that all of this had to be such a big freaking hassle. “It’s settled. I’ll replace the pasta bar with a vegetarian buffet. Will that be acceptable?”

      Before my mother could answer, Susan picked up her purse. “I have to get going.”

      She’d fled within ten minutes, leaving nothing but a few crumpled catering menus in her place. My mother, scrubbing the counter so hard I feared she meant to slaughter her sponge, barely said goodbye to her. She turned her face from mine when I tried to hug her goodbye.

      “You want to stay over? Your room is ready. I saved some Shirley Temple movies on the DVR.” She turned off the water.

      I snuck a peek at my phone, but to my disappointment, Esteban had signed off with a hurried GTG. I shoved my phone back in my pocket. “No. I have to work in the morning. I didn’t bring a bag.”

      “You should’ve. I never get to see you since you moved so far away.”

      We talked on the phone several times a week and texted more than that. I sighed and hugged her. My mother had gotten so much smaller over the past few years. We used to be about the same height—not that we’d seen eye to eye very often. Now it seemed almost like I could rest my chin on top of her head.

      “I’ll call you.” I paused. Then, though I prayed the answer would be negative, asked, “So, you’re not coming to the gallery show on Friday night?”

      My mother shook her head. “To what, see you in some more of those pictures? No, thank you!”

      “I could email them to you,” I offered with a blankly innocent expression that Evan and I had both perfected as teens to totally flip my mother’s shit. “The pictures, I mean.”

      “No, thank you!”

      I laughed, though part of me cringed at the way she categorized what I considered art. And honestly, how she categorized what I considered one of the most significant parts of me. I hugged her again anyway, though, because she was my mother. Then I got the hell out of that house and headed for home.