“Mom? Are you all right?”
She sighed and went over to sit at the kitchen table. “I’m fine,”
she said. “Just disappointed. Your dad has to cancel our trip.”
“Oh,” I said. “Why?”
She looked at me appraisingly for a moment, like she was
trying to decide if I could handle the truth. I stood straight
and tried to look smart, hoping she’d see something in me that
inspired her to confide in me. But she must not have seen what
she’d been looking for, because when she answered, it was just
one word, and a lie—“Work,” she said.
“Oh,” I said again, and I turned to leave, tears stinging
my eyes.
“Nina,” she said. I stopped, but I didn’t turn back around.
“Do you want to go to Italy?”
«««
And that was how I came to find myself missing the final days
of middle school, missing the good-bye party and the yearbook
signing and the graduation ceremony. “It’s just silly anyway,
isn’t it?” was the way Mom put it, and suddenly it did seem silly,
all those things I’d been looking forward to doing. It seemed
silly and childish. And it was clear to me that Mom’s need to
leave for Italy immediately was greater than my desire to do
all those silly things. So she changed the name on Dad’s res-
ervation to mine, and moved forward our departure date, and
within twenty-four hours I was flying across the country and
then across the ocean.
It wasn’t until three hours into our flight that I realized
that I hadn’t seen my father before we left, and that I hadn’t
said good-bye.
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