“You are,” I admit. “You’re allowed to be really upset with me. But don’t you want me to want to be here? Wouldn’t you prefer that when I come to see you and the rest of the family that I’m here by choice?”

“You don’t like it here?” she asks in a small voice.

“Paula, you see how much she wants to go home.” Craig rubs her back. “We owe it to Ally to let her live her life. The life she wants. Don’t force the life you’ve built in your head on her. She’ll come back.”

“No. She won’t.”

“Yes. I will.” I get up from my chair and kneel next to Paula. “I promise you, I’ll come back. I want to get to know my family. But I need to go back to Wisconsin and finish school. To do all the things I had planned. We have the rest of our lives to make up for the past fifteen years.”

I look at Paula, and my heart aches for her anguish. I’ve had this thought in the back of my head that I had to choose between her and Dad. But Craig and Sarah have made me realize that I have a greater capacity for love and family than I thought. Paula is family. She’s my mom. And it’s time that I start seeing her that way.

No competition with Dad. She and I can be something completely separate.

“Mom.” I place my hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I’ve been closed off. This has been really hard on me. Really hard. I need time to adjust to this new life, which includes you. All of you. I want nothing more than to come back here in a few weeks and spend more time with my family. You’re my family.”

I wrap my arms around my mother and hold her close. Unshed tears start burning. I’m holding my mother. A mother had always been this concept—an enigma—to me for most of my life. Yet, here she is, living and breathing.

I’m not sure how long we embrace. I do know that there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to let go.

When Mom finally does speak, it’s in a soft voice. “I only want you to be happy.”

“That’s all any mother should hope for,” Grandma Amanda adds. “And oftentimes being a parent means putting your child’s needs first.”

Mom sniffles. “I know you’re not happy here. As much as I want you to be, you aren’t.”

The room is quiet as we can all see the anguish in her face. She closes her eyes. “If going back to Wisconsin will make you happy, then … okay.”

“Really?”

She nods as she wipes away her tears. “Really.”

“Thank you.” I wrap my arms around her again. “Thank you so much.”