Ava Dellaira

“Well, this is it,” I said, and flipped on a light. “My house.” Sky standing there made me notice everything again. The dried wildflowers in the ceramic vase. Mom’s painting of the sunset over the mesa that Dad had never taken down. The family picture on the out-of-tune piano. I wondered how it all looked through Sky’s eyes.

I don’t know anyone who has a perfect family to start with. And I think that’s why we make up our own. Regular weirdos together. I feel that way about my friends.

Sometimes I’ll be doing something normal, like standing in the alley with my friends, or getting ready for bed, and suddenly the pain of missing her will come up and nearly knock me over.

I wasn’t the same person she’d left. But she was still my mother. And the memory of the way that felt, to have a mom, it took me over.