Page 40 of ClickBack

I run a finger beside one of the headings without touching the ink. “You’re allowed to say it.”

“I know. I just need to get there.”

I want to tell her I am proud of her. I have told her, often enough that she sometimes waves it away, but looking at this page I feel the years it took to arrive here. Hospital shifts, pickups, a child who grew while she was studying. Nights when I helped and nights when I made helping harder by having too much to say about how she had ended up needing it.

“You’ve done a lot to get this far,” I tell her.

She looks at me then. “So have you.”

I could turn that into a speech. Instead, I slide the creamer toward her and get another mug.

“Coffee?”

“A little.”

She tells me Zion stayed at Jeremy’s after the party. His father promised breakfast, and Ms. Kandy has apparently decided to supervise the interpretation of that word. Rae has been offered an extra shift this afternoon, money she could use before taking time for her final exams.

“Can you pick him up?” she asks. “If you have plans, I can work something else out.”

I look at the clock. For once, I actually think about the afternoon before answering.

“I can get him at five.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you have time to go home and sleep first?”

“If nobody else makes me investigate a disappearance.”

I allow that one. She has earned it.

We settle tomorrow’s birthday dinner. Rae is cooking, Jeremy will come if his shift permits, and I am responsible for the cake. Then she asks whether the snack table for next month’s tournament is still on my calendar.

“It’s handled.”

“You’re making the baseball treats again.”

“I might.”

“You already bought the red gel.”

I look toward the cabinet before I can stop myself. Rae laughs.

“They sell snacks already made, Mama.”

“And yet children continue to eat mine.”

“Because you stay up until two drawing stitches on marshmallows.”

“Rice Krispie treats. Precision matters.”

She is laughing when she closes the notebook and stands. I love that sound enough to want to keep her here, though ten minutes ago I was trying to send her away. We have always been capable of this, being difficult and dear to each other within the same cup of coffee.

At the door she turns back. “He was good to you?”

There is no teasing in it now.

“Yes.”