We have just met and I don’t want to dump all the shit from my life directly in her lap.

I’m not family, so I focus on myself. I tell her about all of the studying that I did in high school and Wellesley College.

“Oh my God, you went to Wellesley!” she shrieks. “Wow, that’s such a great school.”

“I’m so relieved you’ve heard of it,” I say. “You’d be surprised how many haven’t.”

“It’s one of the best liberal colleges around. It’s steeped in history. I’m so proud of you!”

I give her a small smile but then my lips part on their own and I grin from ear to ear.

I don’t know how long I have wanted my mother to say that to me.

More tears start to collect. I sniff my nose to try to make them go away.

“What’s wrong? What did I say?” she asks, draping her arm around my shoulder.

“I’m just so…relieved that you are happy to see me,” I mumble. “I wasn’t sure how you would react with just some stranger coming into your life completely unannounced.”

She gives me a squeeze and a peck on the cheek.

I want to ask her what happened and why she gave me up but I want to know more about her first.

“Did you go to college?” I ask.

She nods.

“After I moved out here to California, I went to Santa Monica College, which is a community college, and then I transferred to USC. That’s where I graduated from.”

“Wow, University of Southern California. That’s a pretty big deal.”

“I liked it a lot. That’s where my husband and I met.”

She points to the picture on the wall. I look at him more carefully.

He has trustworthy eyebrows and a strong Roman nose.

“So, you have been together ever since?” I ask.

“We’ve been together since my second semester there, since I was twenty,” she says.

Suddenly, a gulf forms in between everything that we should be talking about and what we are actually talking about.

I try to keep the conversation going on this level but I simply can’t.

I look up at her and see her watching me.

“Why don’t you ask me what you came here to ask me?” Josephine says quietly.

14

Olive

When I ask her…

I sit back into the couch, trying to make myself as small as possible. I want to know, of course, but I don’t want to ask.

I don’t want this beautiful moment between us to dissipate.

“Why did you give me up?” I ask, swallowing hard.

“I didn’t,” she says quietly.