This. This is why I made the choice I made. Imagine me right now, with a year-old baby. I can’t even get out of bed before ten. I think about killing myself every day. What if my baby had to call Mae Mom and Mae had to give up Annapolis to raise her?

Jesus fuck, man.

Jaipriya shrugs. “You’d think it’d be motivation enough to stay clean.” She takes a sip of coffee, adds more sugar. “Why do you hate it? Mother’s Day.”

“My mom died last year.”

“Oh, wow. I’d hate it, too, if I were you.”

“It’s also my birthday.” I set down my coffee because my hand has started to shake.

She smiles. “‘What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?’”

The words sink into me. I like them.

“Did you make that up?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Another poet—Valarie Kaur.”

“Another? You’re a poet?”

I didn’t know a poet could wear a sweater set and khakis.

“Yeah.”

My heart speeds up a little, like it does when I open Acorn.

“You have books out and stuff? Or poems in a magazine?”

Jaipriya shakes her head. “You don’t need to be published to be a poet.”

“Then how do you know you’re a poet?”

She sets her coffee down. “I guess I knew for sure, started calling myself one, when I realized that writing was like breathing. There was no choice for me. I had to. My poems are the best part of me, the part the drugs don’t get to lay their hands on.” She cocks her head to the side. “Are you a poet?”

Even though we’re in the basement of the church, I swear the sun bursts through the stained glass windows above and streams down, right into me, a rainbow of light. This is an outright benediction, and also you can’t lie in church—it’s really fucking bad luck.

“Yes.”

“Half the romantic poets were opium or heroin addicts, so I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. You’re in good company, Hannah. Welcome to the club.” She grabs her purse and slides it onto her shoulder. “And Happy Birthday.”

I reach out, rest a hand on her arm. “Happy Mother’s Day.”

Her eyes widen, then she nods and hurries away, toward the exit. When she gets to the door, Jaipriya turns around.

“You want to hang out sometime?” she says. “Write or … something?”

My chest fills with sparkling sea foam. “Yeah. Yes. I’d love to.”

We exchange numbers, and hers is now included in the small handful in my phone—Mae, Jo, Drew, and the few remaining family members I have left. When she leaves, I finish my own coffee then get on the train, walk home, all in a daze.

I’m a poet.

I miss my mom.