“Your father and I have been talking. You’ve been worried about his business. About me. About everyone else in the world, but not about you. And your paintings and even some of your emails.” She stops and takes a breath. “We could see you were in a dark place. We thought facing Christmas without Phoebe might be enough. The news with Daniel… I wanted to delay it.”

“Mom, I’m fine. Phoebe was your sister.”

“And she was your aunt,” Mom says. “You were close. And all the time that I was falling to pieces, you were so strong. I told everyone how strong you were and I was so proud. I still am proud, but I should have been worried.”

“Worried why?”

Mom touches my hair, just the barest graze near my forehead. “Because sometimes it is easier to force strength for others than to allow ourselves to feel weak and hurt.”

“You think I feel weak and hurt?”

“I think you need to,” Mom says, cupping my cheek. “I think that’s what grief does. It reminds us that we are small. That we are not in control.”

“When were you going to tell me about Daniel?”

“I was going to talk to you when you came,” Mom says. “Because I didn’t want it to be one more opportunity for you to be strong for me.”

“I didn’t…” I can’t finish because she’s right. I came home to be strong for her. And part of me hates that she’s so strong right now. It leaves me squirmy and uncomfortable and terrified.

“I hate this,” I whisper. “It’s too late to be sad about Phoebe. It was a year ago. And now there’s all of this.”

“Grief is big,” Mom says. “And this is big. These things turn your world inside out. They change us. But only for a while.”

“I was wrong about so much.”

“Tell me what you were right about.”

I turn my gaze to the window, and she rubs my arm lightly and stands up. “Find the things you were right about, Mira. Make me a list.”

She gives me pen and paper and a window overlooking the highway. She tells me she’s going for coffee, but she’s been my mother for a long time. And she knows when I need to think.

I watch sunlight glint over the snow. I think of the bumpy landing and my frantic phone call with Daniel. I think of my texts with Zari and Kayla’s bracelet and wonder if she made it out of the snow. Most of all I think of my desperate, breathless thoughts of getting home to my mother—getting through this trip.

That thought drove my every decision, because I thought my mother needed me.

Maybe that’s the piece I mixed up.