“Mom, his death is not your fault,” I say again. “You don’t need to feel tied down by Salt and your guilt. You can go after your dreams.”

“Your future is my dream!” Mom says. “You’ll be the first—”

“No,” I interrupt her. “What’s your dream? You still can do anything you want,” I say, pulling one of her notebooks closer. I open it on a page filled with doodling. Sketches she’d prepared for Dona Fernanda’s daughter’s party. There are floral designs. Table patterns. But there are dresses, too. Shoes. Things she absentmindedly doodled while on phone calls. “Look! You’re so talented!” I say, but Mom closes the notebook. “I know you dreamed different things for yourself. Is that why Grandma felt she needed to tell you to give up on Salt? Because she wanted you to finally be free to find your path? Mom, you can open an atelier, if you want. Just don’t sell Salt. I’d like to take care of things around here when I graduate. Let me take care of Salt. Just let me—”

“Larissa, no.” She cuts me off. “This bakery is nothing but trouble. I wouldn’t be a good mother if I let you inherit a hurting business. A pile of debt. I clung to Salt for as long as I could, but with the threat of losing everything, I can’t leave you with nothing.”

“But I—”

“You need financial stability. This offer with Deals Deals is the only option we have now. And then we’ll restart our lives. You’ll be the first Ramires to go to college!”

Mom’s poured out her heart for me today. There’s no point in hiding the truth now.

“I didn’t mean to lie to you,” I begin, “about the review sessions. About the cooking club. I didn’t know how to tell you this... But I don’t want to study economics. I don’t want to be an accountant. Those were Dad’s dreams. Mine are different. I want to go to the Gastronomic Society and be a baker. And I want to take care of Salt. And I—I wish you would give me a chance to make things right,” I beg, my voice coming out so raw from all the secrets I hid from her. “I wish... I wish you supported me.”

Mom looks tired.

I wait for her to yell that she knows what’s best for me. I wait for her disappointment. But instead, Mom wraps her arms around me. And the gesture is so sudden that I’m frozen like a statue.

“I love you,” she says. “I’m your mother. I’ll always support you.”