We all start rising, and I actually feel the opposite of weight. It’s the feeling I get sometimes when I’m sitting under the trees, when the wind is blowing just right and the sun is glinting down through the leaves. Like everything is okay. Like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.

CARLI

In the pre-op room, when I get Mom alone (Cole and Dad went to get a snack from the vending machine. Yes, they actually announced it in front of me like I’m not lying here starving), I try to take my mind off the surgery by asking her the same question for the millionth time:

What happened between you and Dad?

She’s sitting beside me in a puke-pink pleather chair. Her sunglasses are off, and her eyes are definitely looking better than they did this morning. They’ve been in a perpetual state of red puffiness since last Saturday, but first thing in the morning, they’re always the worst.

“I’ll be fine,” she says, looking up from a design budget. I guess she felt me eyeing her. She’s had I’ll be fine on repeat all week, mostly for Cole. She doesn’t need to say it to me. I believe her. Mom always finds her way back to happy.

Found her way back after her first design business failed and she had to close her studio and start working from home again. We were in elementary school. Found her way back after her mom died from breast cancer four years ago. Grandma Rosemary was cool.

And it’s not that fake, always smiling kind of happy. With Mom, it’s like no matter what happens, big or small, she finds her way back to enjoying her work, her family (well, that’s obviously complicated right now), her music, her books, her art, her random dance sessions, her tea, her candles, her long baths, her wine, her million trinkets around the house—her life. It’s a kind of enjoyment that gets all up in your face, but in a good way. I swear if she didn’t enjoy her life so damn much, I’d probably still be planning to ball. But I see her happiness and want it for myself.

“I know,” I say, voice cracking. Wait, where did that come from? I’m not worried about Mom. I’m really not. But she has been crying a lot. The most I’ve seen since her mom died.

“Carli,” Mom says, and puts her paperwork down. She has a look of concern in her big, Diana Ross–looking eyes. “Sometimes life hits you with things, but you have to keep going, you know.”