Now that her baby boy was gone, though, Stella just wanted him back.
Brenda pulled Stella to the bed and forced her to sit. “When the twins went off to school, I cried for days. I teared up every time I walked past their room, and I kept buying their favorite snack foods at the grocery store for months afterward, forgetting they wouldn’t be around to eat them. I knew they were safe and happy in their dorm rooms, but it didn’t make it easier to bear. My babies didn’t need me anymore, and I felt useless.”
Stella swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “What did you do?”
“I got a tattoo, unfortunately.” Brenda’s eyebrows rose dubiously high before she snorted out a laugh. “Then I took two weeks off work and turned their room into a home gym. Now, they sleep on a bunk bed in the basement when they come home, and thanks to my Stair Master, I could climb to the top of the Empire State Building twice before even feeling winded.”
“I don’t want a home gym. Or a tattoo.” Stella had considered getting a tattoo when she was younger and more reckless. Nothing scandalous. Maybe just a flower somewhere near her collarbone. Then, she found out she was pregnant, and the door to impulsivity slammed shut in her face.
She could have still gotten a tattoo as a single mom, but there was enough stigma to fight back against already. People assumed the worst about her when they should have been assuming the worst about Jace’s biological father. Sure, she could have accepted his marriage proposal and saved her reputation, but it wouldn’t have been happy or healthy for anyone. Stella took the harder road, but she knew in her heart that it was the right road. She never once doubted that decision.
“That’s what the trip is for: to figure out what you want.” Brenda jumped up from the bed and plucked a sun hat off the hook inside the closet, plopping it on Stella’s head and pulling it low over her eyes. “Maybe you should figure it out somewhere tropical. A beach is a great place to do some thinking.”
Stella had never been able to tan. She took Jace to Disney World when he was eight, and even though she lathered herself in sunscreen every hour, her shoulders and cheeks turned a blistering red and then peeled for two weeks after they got home. But she always liked the water. The sound of the ocean lapping against the sand, the lullaby of rolling waves…
Her mom always said, “The only thing that never changes is that everything always changes.” It was true. When Stella got pregnant, she wanted her life to go back to how it was before. She wanted to go to her job at the photo center during the day and then come back to her studio apartment and send out applications to every job she could find that had even the slightest bit to do with design. Stella imagined a big life for herself—maybe in New York City or Chicago or at least Boston. She imagined working a job that required some actual artistic talent and making a lot of money doing it. Maybe she even imagined love, though that always felt like an afterthought. Her career came first.
Then, she had Jace, and everything changed. Stella loved him—adored him. Stella lived for Jace, night and day, for eighteen years. She gave up her dreams and her entire self to raise him and love him, and it never once felt like a sacrifice. It felt as natural as breathing.
Now that he was gone, Stella could hardly breathe.
Once again, everything had changed, but rather than jumping in with both feet, Stella got caught in the wave. She was trapped in the space between what once was and what would be, and she had no idea which way was up or how to make it out of the swell.
Honestly, she wasn’t exactly ready to figure it out, either.
“What have you always wanted to do, Stella?”
“Nothing.”
Brenda rolled her eyes and wagged a disapproving finger in the air. “No. Not acceptable. We both know there is something you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t because of Jace or fear or money or whatever. So, what is it? What’s your dream?”
In the lineup of people Stella was mostly likely to bare her deepest, darkest secrets to, Brenda was towards the back. To be fair, the line wasn’t very long to begin with. Stella was close with her mom and Jace, and beyond that, her friend list was limited. Her siblings all lived out of state and, aside from talking to the other moms at Jace’s basketball games and choir concerts, Stella had never made friends of her own. She honestly thought she didn’t need them.
Until now, apparently.
“I’ll start,” Brenda said, tucking her dyed black hair behind her ear. “I’ve always wanted to audition for The Price is Right.”
Stella gaped. “After all the sass you gave me over daytime television?”
“I know, I know, but I watch it every time I’m home sick from work, and I’ve always wanted to go and audition. I almost did when we were on vacation in California once, but I chickened out. And you know what? I’ve always regretted it.”
“Please tell me that isn’t your life’s biggest regret.”
“You couldn’t handle my biggest regret,” Brenda said, narrowing her eyes before shrugging. “Which is why we are focusing on dreams. Now, tell me yours.”
A few hours later, when Stella was in her car on the side of the highway, stuck in a reception dead zone with no idea how to get help, the conversation with Brenda was all a blur. She remembered mumbling something about working as a designer in Boston before, suddenly, she was crying. Not normal crying, either. Full-blown hysterics. Puffy-eyed, snotty-nosed,
