“About what?” asked Emily. “It would be one thing if you told me you wanted to . . . I don’t know, be a bank robber or a serial killer or . . .” She groped for better examples, then gave up and said, “But Klara, wanting to get married and have kids and be happy, all of that is completely—”
Oh.
Normal. A normal life was the life Klara dreamed of.
Emily’s chest rose and fell. Klara tried to speak, but Emily raised her hand, silencing her.
“I understand now,” she said. “But Klara, there’s nothing wrong with wanting those things. There really isn’t. I want those things, too.”
“You do?” asked Klara.
“Friends, family, a happy life?” Emily said. “Sure.”
“I was just worried . . . well, that—”
“I’d feel as if you were rejecting me, just like my mom,” Emily filled in.
“Or that you’d reject me, for following the herd or whatever,” Klara said.
“No,” said Emily. She knew Klara wasn’t coming down on her. Still, she felt the sinking sensation of having done something wrong, the dread of being scolded.
“My mom’s version of ‘normal’ is different from yours,” Emily said.
“Very,” Klara quickly said.
Emily tried to sort through her emotions. Her mother made her feel bad for not conforming to the definition of “normal” that her mother subscribed to. Feeling bad . . . well, it felt bad. It did.
Emily knew that her mother’s concern sprang from love. What she didn’t know was if her mother refused to accept Emily for who she was—in other words, not “normal”—or if her mother was just . . .
Flawed?
That’s what it felt like, but surely that wasn’t fair.
What if her mom simply didn’t possess enough imagination to see Emily for who she truly was?
She’d been silent for an awfully long time, she realized.
Klara sat there, kind of wringing her hands.
“Um, I think it’s one thing to reject being normal if being ‘normal’ means not being who you really are,” Emily said carefully. She saw hope in Klara’s eyes, which gave her courage. What might it feel like to forgive herself—as well as her mother? Was Emily capable of separating herself from her mom’s expectations?
A wet, woolen weight loosened its hold on her.
“But deciding for yourself what makes you happy, and then doing everything you can to make that happen . . . I have a feeling that’s the only way to be happy,” Emily continued. “So, Klara, if what you want is a normal life, normal by your standards, that’s what you should go for.”
“Really?” Klara said.
“Really,” Emily insisted.
Klara studied her. Then she gave Emily a funny, squinty smile. “Well . . . all right, then.” Klara rearranged her legs so that she was sitting cross-legged. “Now it’s your turn. Let’s hear your wishes.”
Emily drew her thumbnail to her mouth. She pulled it out. “All right. For the deepest wish of my secret heart . . .”
Several long moments ticked by.
“You’re stalling,” Klara chastised.
“I’m not,” Emily protested. “I’m just not sure what words to use.”
Klara raised her hand as if they were in school. “I have an idea. How about you use the words that say what your deepest wish is?”
“Thanks, yeah,” said Emily.
Klara lowered her hand and smirked.
“I need to figure out how to phrase it before our Wishing Days, but basically, my deepest wish is to be closer to my dad.” Saying it out loud prompted a wellspring of tears. She swiped at her eyes. “Sorry.”
“Oh, Em, no need to be sorry,” Klara said, scooching over and putting her arm around her. “When you say ‘closer,’ do you mean physically closer or emotionally closer?”
“Both, but physically would be a good start. Like, why can’t I go visit him in California? Spend time with him?”
“Because your mom doesn’t want you to, which is really, really unfair. You could go to a judge, I bet. Or get your dad to go to a judge!”
“I’ve thought of that,” Emily said. “Just, it’s complicated. I don’t want to hurt my mom, but I do want my dad to be part of my life.” She picked at a loose thread on her cutoffs. “He understands me better. Before he moved, before my parents got divorced, he was the one who stood up for me. He said things like, ‘There’s no such thing as normal.’”
Klara took Emily’s hand.
“Not a one-size-fits-everyone kind of normal, I mean,” Emily clarified, not wanting Klara to feel bad again for saying she wanted a normal life.
“An excellent wish,” Klara said.
“Thanks.” Emily squeezed Klara’s hand, then released it.
“And for the wish you can make come true yourself?”
“Same as yours: for us to stay best friends forever.”
“Aw,” Klara said. “We’re so cheesy, aren’t we?”
Emily smiled. “We are.”
“And your impossible wish?”
Emily saw herself as a little girl, sitting on her knees in the backseat of her parents’ station wagon and facing backward. Looking out the rear window, the world had seemed enormous.
Her dad had turned on the car, and her mom had said, “Turn around, Emily. Fasten up.” As her dad backed the car out of the driveway, she’d taken in the wide blue sky visible through the side window. Then the sky through Nate’s window, on the opposite side. The sky was everywhere, and she was the sky. She was the world. She was everything.
A smile had stretched across her face. She’d wanted to put what she knew into words, but her mother had clicked on the radio, and the song sent the words swirling away. Sent the moment swirling away, forgotten until this moment of basking in the sun with Klara.
“The truth?” Emily said. “To be older. To be past all of this.”
“Past all of what? The stuff with your mom and dad?”
“It’s kind of the same as what you want, actually: a happy life. Because when I’m older—”
“How much older?”
“Eighteen?” Emily said, trying it out. “Done with high school?” She looked inside herself. “Old enough to move out of my mom’s house and be me. To be my kind of normal, without my mom making me feel like a constant failure.”
“But Emily!”
“What?”
“You can’t just skip over”—Klara counted on her fingers—“five years
