she had to stop clearing up.
He reached for her hands and wrapped them in his. “You must miss her a great deal.”
Not trusting her voice, she nodded.
“I’d love to hear more about your mom.” He looked from the chest, then back to her face. “If you feel up to talking about her, that is.”
Her stomach felt all twisted up. Zara’s dad had always become so sad when she brought up the subject of her mom that she’d learned not to speak of her at all. And it had never seemed fair to talk about her with her stepmother.
Brittany was the only person Zara had ever really been able to talk to about her mother…and even then, she’d never been brave enough to tell her stepsister absolutely everything. Then, as they’d grown older and Brittany had stopped bringing up her father so much and seemed to have recovered from losing him, Zara had taken that as a cue to stop bringing up her mother too.
Even though she hadn’t gotten over losing her mom at all.
Suddenly, she realized just how badly she wanted to talk with someone about her. No, not just someone.
Rory.
Zara wanted Rory to know how special her mother had been. How loving and smart. How she’d been brilliant at needlepoint. How her smile could light up a room. How she could never get into a kayak without tipping it over.
And how Zara still longed for her every single day.
“You would have loved her. Everyone did.”
Rory led her over to an open spot on the couch. “Was your mom a firecracker like you?”
“She most definitely was.” The thought made Zara smile. “She was really sweet and kind, but if you disappointed her, you were going to hear about it. And she could yell so loud it made your ears ring.”
“That sounds a lot like my mom. Tell me more.”
“She had a job in human resources at a manufacturing company in Kennebunkport and always swore that she was more comfortable behind a desk than out trying to sell people something or being bubbly and chatty. But one year, after a bad storm destroyed the playground equipment in the local park, she spearheaded the biggest fundraiser our town had ever seen. I hated having to go door to door asking for donations when the rest of my friends were goofing off, but she was right that our town needed that park rebuilt. We both went and talked with nearly every single person in town. If I hadn’t done that with her, I’m not sure I would have had the nerve to ever start selling my eyeglasses frames.” Zara was silent for a moment. “Looking back, it’s easy to see how much we take our parents for granted. That they’ll always be there for us and to teach us the things we’ll need to know later in life. I wish I had been mature enough to tell her how special she was and how much I learned from her before she died.”
“She would be really proud of you, Zara.” He was still holding her hand. “I hope you know that.”
Her chest tightened again as pain rammed her hard in the solar plexus. She’d tried so hard to bury her shame and her guilt over the years, but the truth was she’d never actually succeeded. And now, she couldn’t keep it inside anymore. Couldn’t keep secret the truth that she’d never told anyone—not her father, not Brittany, and certainly not any of her boyfriends.
Only with Rory was Zara compelled to finally admit, and to speak aloud, the terribly painful truth of the day her mother died.
“I was fourteen, and she had taken me to see the eye doctor. I was having trouble seeing both the board at school and the soccer ball, and the optometrist confirmed that I needed glasses. He recommended that I begin with glasses, then graduate to contacts down the road in college, because he said teenagers tend to have trouble keeping contact lenses clean and remembering to take them out at night. I was so upset about having to wear glasses and looking like a nerd. Mom tried to reason with me. She promised we would find some really pretty frames, and she knew I would totally pull them off.”
Zara’s next breath shook in her chest, and she instinctively reached for Rory’s other hand, knowing she would never be able to get through her story without his grounding touch.
“I had a crush on the coolest boy in class, and I