Again, she laughed. “Oh, it matters. But I don’t want to talk religion with you. Your faith is between you and God. I want to know all the big moments you’ve experienced over the past five years. Your first boyfriend. Your first kiss. Your first heartbreak. I want you to tell me all about your friends. Did you keep in touch with your old friends? Or did you make new ones at your Christian school? Did your dad ever find another woman? Or did he die a lonely man?”

She had a lot of questions. I had only anticipated one or two of them. Maybe the boyfriend question and the one about my old friends from public school. Everything else left me a little speechless, especially the questions about Dad finding someone new after divorcing her.

“I’ve had a boyfriend. Two, actually.”

“And …” Her grin grew into something weird. A grin like my friends used to give me after I’d gone out on a date.

It was hard to separate Rory from Mom. In fact, I hadn’t used either name yet to her face because I wasn’t sure what I should call her.

“It didn’t last long either time.”

“That’s it?” She gave me a raised eyebrow. “That’s the best you can do? What about your first kiss?”

I shrugged. “It was okay.”

“You seem hesitant. Is it because I’m your mom? We used to talk about stuff all the time. You’d come home from school and tell me about your day.” She sighed with a contented smile, like her five years in prison never happened. Like we should’ve been able to pick up where we left off.

I remembered watching a show about this plane that disappeared and then returned years later. Families assumed the plane went down, and there were no survivors. So when the plane returned home, things were different. Kids were older. Spouses remarried. But the people on the plane couldn’t understand that because, for them, nothing had changed. My mom’s time in prison was like her being on that plane.

“I wanted to visit you in prison.” I changed the subject to what I had imagined we’d talk about.

Why Dad convinced me it was in my best interest to not visit her.

Why I didn’t push harder to see her after he died.

How I felt the three times I did get to see her parents.

What it felt like being in prison.

How it changed her.

Literally anything but my dating life and details of my first kiss.