“My point is that my mom was cool. Effortlessly. She was confident. And so likable. Everyone who met her loved her. She was moldable. Sometimes vibrant, sometimes bland. Sometimes appearing as a brilliant piece of art and sometimes just a blob sitting on a sculptor’s table, waiting to be morphed into the next version of herself. She wasn’t like Estelle. She didn’t have to wear jewelry and heavy makeup and heels around the house. Estelle is like glass, once she shatters there won’t be anyone there to put her back together, but my mom . . . she was like clay.”

Until now, I had never thought or spoken about my mom in this way. I usually condemned her for leaving me and didn’t really take the time to appreciate who she was—or might still be.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the headrest of the car. I couldn’t think of a single time that I sat in my car without music playing, just talking to another person. The thrum of my engine cutting through the thick Georgia air was all I could hear. That, and the whisper of my mom’s laughter as she shook her hair. Her hair always tickled my face, and the two of us would laugh until our stomachs hurt.

“She would stand over me and shake her hair, like a wild woman. I loved it. I can’t imagine Estelle doing that. Or laughing in general.”

Not a peep came from Kael; he didn’t even move. If I hadn’t witnessed him blinking, I’d have wondered if he was okay. He had this “thing” about him, and I didn’t understand it. I kept trying to make him fit into a box—was he charming, warm, friendly, genuine? He didn’t quite fit anywhere exactly, but he somehow put me at ease. It wasn’t a familiar feeling. It was sort of scary how fast I could see myself getting used to this. This must be why people want boyfriends? To have a comfortable, settled feeling all the time.

Boyfriends? Friends? What in the world is wrong with me? I kept the conversation focused on my mom. It felt nice to be able to talk about her, and who knew when I would next have this chance?

“Anyway, my mom, she wasn’t materialistic. She didn’t care about overpriced purses or flashy earrings. She shopped at thrift stores and made her own jewelry half the time. The fanciest we ever got was for our birthdays. She was obsessed with birthdays, even more than Christmas-level obsessed. She used to go all out for them. It was this huge thing, more like a birthday week. We didn’t have a ton of gifts or anything, but she was creative and thoughtful. She would make us pancakes and cut them into the shape of our age. She did it every single year until I was seventeen.”