Page 80 of Second Alarm
Chapter 15
Hanna
Iwake up in my mother's house the morning after the barbecue because I've saidtomorrowto Ty Brennan, andtomorrowmeans today, and before I can tell Cal I have to tell my mother, because my mother, it turns out, has been waiting.
The Larsen house is at the end of Fir Street where the pavement goes to gravel — a ranch with a porch my father added in 1999, the kind of lawn raised by a woman who doesn't tolerate uneven lawns. Mom is sixty-four. She gardens. She wears her hair short. She has a laugh I didn't hear for two years after my father died, and then, slowly, the way snow melts, her laugh came back.
She's in the kitchen making miso soup from scratch with the wooden spoon she's used my whole life, the whole kitchen smelling like dashi and scallions. On the counter next to the pot is a small container of gummy bears — the bag I bought her two weeks ago, being rationed, because she's the kind of woman who rations a bag of gummy bears because her daughter bought them for her.
"Hi, Mom."
"Hanna." She doesn't turn around. "You're up early."
"I didn't get in until late."
"You've been on my mind. And it's Sunday. And you haven't eaten breakfast — your face has had a specific look since you were five."
"What look."
"Your hungry face. Sit."
I sit.
She pours us both soup and sits across from me at the kitchen table — the table that's held a lot of meals, with the scratch from Cal's Hot Wheels when he was a kid and the burn mark from my father's forgotten iron. She lets me eat. She doesn't talk, doesn't demand. She eats with me, and her soup is better than my soup has ever been.
Three bites in, I realize my face is wet.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just a small, consistent leak, the way a pipe leaks before you know it's leaking. She notices, says nothing, gets up, and puts a paper towel on the table beside my bowl. Then she sits back down and keeps eating.
"Mom."
"Mm."
"I'm going to tell you a thing. Before I tell Cal — because if I tell Cal first and you find out through him, I've made two mistakes in a row."
"All right."
"It's about Ty Brennan."
She nods and keeps eating.
"Mom."
"Hanna."
"I'm trying to tell you a thing."
"I know."
"You aren't asking questions."
"I have my questions." She sets her spoon down. "I'm not asking them until you've finished your soup, because your father would turn over in his grave if I let you cry into a good miso."
"Mom."
"Eat."
I eat.
