I saw her before she saw me. In the front row, I saw her sitting with my dad and Laurel and Steven. She had her hair pulled back, pinned up on the sides. I’d never seen her wear her hair like that before. She had on a light purple dress. She looked grown up. It occurred to me that she had grown up while I wasn’t looking, that there was every likelihood she had changed and I didn’t know her anymore. But when she stood up to clap, I saw the Band-Aid on her ankle and I recognized her again. She was Belly. She kept messing with the barrettes in her hair. One was coming loose.
My plane had been delayed, and even though I’d done eighty the whole way to Cousins, I was still late. Jeremiah was starting his speech just as I walked in. There was an empty seat up front next to my dad, but I just stood in the back. I saw Laurel shift in her seat, scanning the room before turning back around. She didn’t see me.
A woman from the shelter got up and thanked everyone for coming. She talked about how great my mom was, how dedicated she was to the shelter, how much money she raised for it, how much awareness in the community. She said my mom was a gift. It was funny, I’d known my mom was involved with the women’s shelter, but I didn’t know how much she gave of herself. I felt a jolt of shame as I remembered the time she’d asked me to go help her serve breakfast one Saturday morning. I’d blown her off, told her I had stuff I needed to do.
Then Jere got up and went to the podium. “Thanks, Mona,” he said. “Today means so much to my family, and I know it would have meant even more to my mom. The women’s shelter was really important to her. Even when we weren’t here in Cousins, she was still thinking about you guys. And she loved flowers. She used to say she needed them to breathe. She would be so honored by this garden.”
It was a good speech. Our mom would have been proud to see him up there. I should have been up there with him. She would have really liked that. She would have liked the roses, too.
I watched Jere sit down in the first row in the seat next to Belly. I watched him take her hand. The muscles in my stomach clenched, and I moved behind a woman in a wide-brimmed hat.
This was a mistake. Coming back here was a mistake.
