I trace the two words, written in black ink by a hand more beloved than my own. The color is stark against the pale pink of the parchment paper it’s scrolled on. This was so her. Something she always did. Write letters. Mostly to my sister, Evie, and me over the years during her times away. Sometimes it would be a postcard from one of the faraway places her wandering soul would take her. Other times, it was a quickly scribbled note on a bar napkin enclosed with a ticket stub from a concert she’d seen on her adventure.
Once she sent us these incredible jeweled necklaces from a German glassworker that were blown glass and hand painted. Every time the mailman came to the reservation where we stayed with our grandfather, I’d pray there was a message or package from Mom.
From the time I could speak and understand, I’d hang on every word of the fantastical stories she’d tell us upon her return. Her stories took us everywhere from Istanbul to Iceland and all the way to a Burning Man festival in the California desert. That time, she gave us tiny finger cymbals that belly dancers used. After that gift, Mother signed us up for our first round of belly dancing lessons, something Evie and I still love doing together.
The reality in our home was that our mother, Catori Ross, went where the wind blew her.
I adored my mother and envied the life she lived. Still do, even after she left us for her final journey. Her one last adventure, she liked to call it. One she promised Evie and me would make her happy for eternity.
Never worry about me, beautiful girls, she whispered, each of her hands outstretched, my hand in one, Evie’s in the other. Her body sunken in, nothing but skin and bones, in the bed she’d not left in months. She smiled and shifted her dark gaze first to Evie and then to me. I’ve never been anywhere there wasn’t beauty. With a squeeze of our hands, she closed her eyes, exhaled, and was gone.
It was the last thing she said to us. What’s amazing, though? I believed her. Death would be Mom’s final stop whether or not she wanted it to be. Even then, I knew in my whole heart that she’d find beauty wherever her soul flew. It was her way.
The one saving grace in all this sorrow was that Mom truly lived. She never settled. Always kept one foot outside the door, hands tightly gripping the wheel of life. With every breath she took, she exhaled freedom, spirit, and love. Wanderlust oozed out of every pore. Nothing could hold her back. Not her military-driven husband or her two daughters. A fact that has hurt Evie deeply.
Me, I’ve always understood. I’m just like my mother. My feet are constantly itching to dance, to run, to fly. Which is why, scanning the last paragraph of my mother’s words to me on this, my eighteenth birthday, I’ve come to the revelation that I, too, can’t settle. I won’t be held back by obligation, responsibility, or even...love.
I shuffle through the stacks of sealed pink envelopes beside the satin ribbon that held them together when my grandfather handed these letters to us after my mother died six months ago. Each envelope carries a date or specific event in our lives indicating when we are to open them.
Evie and I share the same birthday, so she opened her first letter marked with the same date as my own. Today’s date. Her twentieth birthday, my eighteenth.
Evie sniffles from the papasan chair she’s snuggled into and folds her letter into thirds before stuffing it back into the envelope. She presses the flat of her hand along the front and lifts it to her nose.
“Smells like her.” Evie clears her throat as a tear slides down her cheek.
I sniff my letter and note the subtle hints of citrus and earth, maybe even patchouli. “Mom always said if you’re going to smell like anything, let it be natural. Fruit and spice.”
“And everything nice!” Evie chuckles, then lets out a long sigh. “I miss her. Sometimes I pretend she’s just gone off on another one of her adventures, you know? Then I can be pissed off and plan out all the catty things I’m going to say to her when she finally returns with a suitcase full of dirty clothes and presents to smooth over the hurt of her absence.”