“ ‘If not now, when?’ My journey to adulthood is long, but that doesn’t mean I can sit back and wait for it to happen, that I cannot be the author of my own life. I need to make things happen that I want to happen, learn the things I want to learn, and be open to discovering new things about life and myself that I don’t even know I want to know about yet. I am looking forward to it.”

Then I smile, seeing all the faces of the audience as individuals again, my family and friends, my mother’s radiance as she wipes tears from her eyes.

I am feeling very special—and very, very loved.

“Thank you for coming to my bat mitzvah.”

After my bat mitzvah, some things change and some things don’t. The first big thing that happens is that Aunty Steph and Shmuel Yosef leave for Israel. Shmuel Yosef is going to learn in a yeshiva, and Aunty Steph is going to “play it by ear.” My mother just shakes her head and laughs. But we all cry when we say goodbye at the airport. Aunty Steph puts down her two huge hiking backpacks and gives my mom one of her longest hugs ever. And then she gives me an even longer one.

“Milla-babe, I can’t wait to see your beautiful hair with flowers in it when you’re a bridesmaid at my wedding!” she says, and then waves madly behind her as she tries to walk toward security wearing those two huge knapsacks, one on her front and one on her back.

“Why didn’t she check those things?” my dad asks. But my mom just shrugs and laughs as she wipes her eyes again.

And speaking of my mom, something big happens for her too. She announces that she is stepping down from her position as chairwoman of the board for my school. She says she will still be very involved but that it’s someone else’s turn to take the reins, and she is going to train to be an executive coach, which means she’s going to help people “reach their potential.” She and my dad are clearing out the spare room to make it into a home office so she can have somewhere quiet and private to study and work. I think this is probably going to be a really good thing for my mom, and I think her being happy will be better for our house, and our home. She’s promised not to get rid of the massage table though!

On Shabbat afternoon, just before the last week of school, me and my mom are sitting in the den reading, Max playing with his Legos at our feet, when I notice the spine of my mother’s book: Most Likely To … Rion by R. S. Williams, the first one in the series.

“Nice book,” I say, smiling. She glances up.