Mom eases off my bed. “It’s late, Calla. You need to get some sleep.”
“I know. I’m just gonna grab a shower first.”
She reaches for me and gives me a tight hug that lasts several beats too long.
“Oh my God, I’ll be back next Sunday!” I laugh, squeezing her slender frame back just as hard. “What are you going to be like when I move out?”
She peels away to stroke the long strands of my hair off my face, blinking against her glossy eyes. “Simon and I have discussed it and you’re never moving out. We’ve begun building a dungeon for you downstairs.”
“Next to his secret money vault, I hope.”
“Across from it. I’ll remove your collar when it’s time for our shows.”
“Or you could just put a TV in my dungeon.”
She mock-gasps. “Why didn’t I think of that! We wouldn’t have to listen to Simon’s whining in the background.” Simon detests our mutual love of cheesy reality TV and violent Viking shows, and he can’t help but pass through the living room while we’re watching, sometimes dropping witty but mostly annoying commentary.
Finally releasing me, she moves languidly to the doorway. She lingers, though, studying me as I kneel on top of the second stuffed suitcase and tug at the zipper. “You should probably bring a book or two.”
“You meant MacBook, right?” I can’t get past a chapter in a book without falling asleep and she knows it.
“I figured as much.” A pause. “I hope they have internet there.”
“Oh my God, you’re kidding, right?” Panic hits me as my mind begins to spin with the possibility that they don’t. I spent a long weekend at a cottage near Algonquin Park once and had to drive fifteen minutes up the road to get enough bars on my phone to retrieve my texts. It was hell. But no . . . “Agnes answered her emails right away. They totally have internet,” I say with certainty.
Mom shrugs. “Just . . . prepare yourself. Life out there is different. Harder. And yet simpler, if that makes any sense.” A nostalgic smile touches her lips. “You know, your dad used to try and get me to play checkers. Every single night he’d ask, even though he knew I hate board games. Used to annoy the hell out of me.” She frowns. “I wonder if he still plays.”
“Kind of hoping he doesn’t.”
“You’re going to be bored out of your mind within a day and looking for things to do,” she warns.
“I’m sure I’ll be hanging out at the airport a bit.” I heave the second suitcase to its wheels. “You know . . . watching planes crash.”
“Calla!”
“I’m kidding.”
She sighs heavily. “Just don’t make the same mistake I did and fall in love with one of those pilots.”
I chuckle. “I’ll try my best not to.”
“I’m being serious.”
“It’s not a firehouse, Mom.”
She holds her hands in the air in surrender. “Fine. I know. But there’s something about those guys that work up there. I can’t explain it. I mean, they’re crazy, landing on glaciers and mountain ridges, flying through whiteouts. They’re like . . .” Her eyes search for words within my walls. “Sky cowboys.”
“Oh my God!” I burst out laughing. “Do I seem like the kind of girl who’d fall for some Alaskan sky cowboy?” I can barely get the words out.
She levels me with a flat look. “Do I?”
Fair point. My mom has always been glamorous. Her earlobes are never without diamonds and she could make a pair of leggings and a worn concert T-shirt look sophisticated. She’d set herself on fire before sliding on a pair of “mom” jeans.
I carefully navigate around my furniture, wheeling the two enormous suitcases to the landing outside my door.
“Those look back-breakingly heavy,” Mom murmurs.
“They are back-breakingly heavy.”