Page 71 of The Getaway List
“For the Getaway List,” says my mom.
My skin prickles, so unprepared to hear those words come out of her mouth that the guilt of it doesn’t even know where to land. “You know about that?”
Her backpack is still at our feet. She unzips it and produces something I sure as hell never thought I’d see again: my graduation cap. She flips it to show the inside, where my version of the Getaway List is taped and still very much intact.
“Oh,” I say, and then before I can think the better of it, “Shit.”
“You never told me about this,” she says. I’m relieved to hear some bemusement in her tone, even if mostly she just sounds sad. “Why not?”
And here comes the bit I was avoiding; the truth we can’t quite skate around anymore. “I didn’t want you to feel bad. I know some of it was you keeping us separated, but I also know some of it was because we were on our own.”
She settles the cap into my lap and doesn’t speak for a few moments, but there’s no tension in the silence. Just a quiet understanding.
“I think every parent feels that way about their kids. Wanting to give more to them than they can.” She lowers her eyes just enough that I know better than to look away. That these are words she needs me to hear most. “But you don’t have to protect me from that kind of thing. I’m your mom. I’ll always want more for you. And I’ll always be here for you no matter how old you get.”
I lean in and she pulls me into her arms again, and I’m grateful in that moment not just to be the eighteen-year-old Riley I am—the Riley who has dozens of Google Docs tabs of writing and lifelong friends and a whole future to dive into—but all the iterations of Riley I’ve ever been. The ones that have always, always known that this is my soft place to land.
We pull apart, both a little weepy again. It feels like there’s going to be a lot of that today. I cast my eyes on the graduation cap I thought I’d never see again, skimming a finger through the unchecked boxes on my list that are all mostly checked now. All of them save one—the same one that is somewhere in North Carolina right now, farther than he’s ever been.
“If Vanessa knew to send things to Tom before you did any of your adventures it was probably because I was telling her about them,” says my mom. “She said she was hoping to repair her relationship with him. I thought maybe if I kept her in the loop she’d take the time to reach out on her own.”
I open my mouth to ask how on earth my mom kept in touch with Vanessa when even Tom couldn’t manage it half the time, but a lot of old memories well up and answer for me. There was a time my mom and Vanessa were friends, too. A time that predated me and Tom being friends. When Vanessa was like another older sister to my mom, and my mom must have felt like the funny, judgment-free friend Vanessa never had at her big corporate job before she quit to write.
They were close once. Close enough that it seems strange to me looking back on it that they grew as far apart as they did. But I suppose Tom wasn’t the only one Vanessa let fall to the wayside in this climb of hers. It gives me some new context for all the times my mom didn’t want me coming up here, for why she was so upset Vanessa wasn’t here to “supervise” me and Tom when I eventually did. She understood Vanessa was disconnecting from the people she loves before I did, before Tom could even fully comprehend it. I wonder how many times before this my mom might have tried and failed to pull her back.
I draw my knees up on the couch, leaning into her. “She picked a weird way to go about it.”
My mom nods. “I didn’t hear much back from her, but when I realized how bad it was I told her she should call Tom more often. Learn what’s actually going on in his life.” She leans her head onto the top of mine. “Maybe that was her way of starting.”
My eyes well up again, partially because of Tom, but mostly because there’s something overwhelming about knowing that my mom and I spent the summer quietly on the same team. It feels like some measure of order has been restored, knowing that we both still think the same way, hope for the same things.
“I don’t want you to think I’m running away from you,” I tell her, choked up again. “Leaving home was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
She runs a hand through my hair and says it again. “I know.” Then she adds, “And I know it probably doesn’t sound that way, from the stories. But it was for me when I left, too.”
My mom has always been close with my grandparents, but I spent too much time in the collective bubble of my family not to know there’s still some lingering tension between them. Tension that I’m sure came to a head when she struck out on her own that first time.
The words pile out of me then, because all my bravery about New York still hinges on one soul-deep fear. “If I stay—we’ll be okay, you and me?”
“When you stay,” my mom corrects me. “And Riley, of course. I’m sorry it’s taken me some time to adjust to this. It’s new territory for us both.”
“I’ll visit,” I promise her.
“Good,” she says. “And if I won’t cramp your style too much with the ghost of Ugg boots past, I’d love to come up here and visit you, too.”
The distant lights have been gleaming through the window the whole time, but they feel like they’re casting a new warmth now. Like something is finally settled between us, and now the weight of it is off our shoulders, giving us room to breathe.
“You can show me all your old haunts,” I say with a sly smile.
“I can show you a very narrow margin of them,” says my mom, “and not because I don’t trust you, to be clear. I just cannot look anyone in the eye who might remember what I looked like with bedazzled bright green hair.”
“You didn’t,” I say, delighted.
“I did,” she says grimly. “You can disregard the rest of my advice if you want. But let me warn you, my mini-me, that you and I cannot pull that look off.”
I burrow in then, feeling a flicker of mischief, one that I haven’t felt in a conversation with my mom in a long time. “Are you finally going to tell me about your time in the city then? I didn’t even know you wanted to act.”
My mom does something then that I haven’t seen her do since she had a crush on my fifth-grade teacher, and genuinely blushes. “That was a long time ago,” she says. For a moment I think that’s the end of it—that I’ve finally pressed on the boundary of how far this conversation will go—until she adds, “But yes, I will tell you. Under the condition that you only make fun of me a little. And that you tell me about your best hijinks here, too.”
