Page 10 of In a Word, Yes

This time she offers a clarifying question. “Lucy. Sweetie. Now listen. Can you say for certain that you aren’t meant to finish writing this book? Does the idea of setting it aside bring you peace?”

I can’t, and it doesn’t. Tears press. I blink them back.Dang it.I need to have something to show for everything that happened. Something ... redemptive. Doesn’t God want this too?

“Sweetie, please hear me out. There are always plenty of good reasons not to do something. Just please, please promise me you won’t let fear be one of them.”

“But Mom, I’m...” My stupid chin quivers. “I’m stuck. I don’t know what comes next.” In my life, let alone in my book. And I hate that I’ve allowed my mother, of all people, to see me so vulnerable. I stare at my hands.

“Oh, darling.” Mom squeezes my shoulder, then tips up my chin. “Sounds to me like the perfect place to start. Because you know the One who does.”

Warmth mushrooms in my chest. All these weeks I’ve wrestled against my restlessness, but what if God is its source? For a fleeting moment I face dead-on the unsettling reality I’ve beenrunning from. What if the reason I feel so adrift lately is because the story I belong to is better than the one I’m living right now?

Maybe the reason I’ve been too afraid to ask God to show me the next step is because I know he will.

Picture a squirrel on Red Bull. That’s Chase, bursting through the door, flushed, chattering a mile a minute.

I release my pent-up breath.

“Mom, Mom, Mom. Paige’s mother said I could come with them to dinner. But they’re going to the Trading Post, and I can’t go. I have to do my homework.” He angles toward his room, as if his Tennessee grandmother is just another alternative-down-stuffed throw pillow. “She texted you. They’re waiting down there in the car. But I can’t go. I have to go change, and I have to do my homework.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa—Chase, honey, let’s slow down just a teeny bit. Come here first, please. Good. Thank you. Now, let’s take a breath. Whatcha got there?” His fingers grip a folded-up paper. “Is that for me?”

My son manages to come to a full stop but appears on the brink of self-combusting. His round chocolate-brown eyes dart back and forth between me and Mom. “I have to change.” Blessedly, his mouth tips into a hint of a smile for his grandmother. Meanwhile, my mind goes all worst-case-scenario on me as I set the paper, presumably from Master Yun, aside. Had Chase been disruptive? What if this activity, like so many before it, doesn’t work out?Not without a fight this time.

“I know you want to change,” I say. “And that’s fine. But you can take a minute to say hello to Mimi.” Smiling, my mother opens her arms. Chase steps into the hug with characteristic stiffness.

“Look at my big boy,” Mom coos while I fetch my cell.

I’ll ask Nina for a few minutes to settle Chase, then go from there. From the kitchen, I watch the way Mom strokes my son’s walnut waves, searching his features with a bizarre intensity, glassy-eyed with longing. Thinking of Mikey, I’d have to guess.Everyone who knew my little brother is taken aback to spy his doughy cheeks and dusting of cinnamon freckles come to life again on my son’s face.

Low in my belly, that sharp-beaked crow that first made its nest there twenty years or so ago nips at my insides and twists.Halt. Hold up.No longer am I the child who internalizes everyone else’s agony as her own. I know how to shut that down now. These impenetrable boundaries I’ve erected trump the days of having none at all. Don’t they? For better or worse, I’m bulletproof.

Still, ancient sorrow hangs in the room like dripping stalactites.

Drip.

Drip.

Grief has such a hollow sound.

Mom’s cheek twitches as she fingers the hem of Chase’s white cotton uniform. “You looksohandsome and so, so strong. What do you call this?”

Chase stands straight and proud. “I’ve heard grownups calling it agi. But they shouldn’t, because that’s a Japanese word and tae kwon do is from Korea. It’s called adobok. It means ‘clothing of the way.’ That’s what they should call it, adobok.”

Mom’s lips form a wobbly smile. “Well, that is so interesting, Chase. Thank you for explaining. I will be sure to call it adobok.”

Chase responds with an eye sparkle so fleeting it would be easy to miss.

“Chase, sweetie,” Mom adds, “what if your mother and I came along to the restaurant? Would you like that?” Mom strokes his sleeve, and I expect him to reflexively twist away. When he doesn’t, I warm inside. Can my mother see how far he has come?

I motion Chase closer to where I stand and wait until he makes eye contact. “It was kind of Nina to invite you. Obviously they enjoy your company. You don’t have to go, hon, but would you like to change out of your uniform and think about it? Like Mimi said, we can come along if you like.”

As soon as Chase disappears around the corner, Mom and I share a smile. “He’s doing so well, sweetie,” she says quietly. “You’re such a good mom.”

Chase reemerges wearing his favorite blue polo as if heading to church rather than to our town’s greasy spoon. By the look of him, he’s decided to go. “Mom, can I take an avocado?” Lately avocados are Chase’s favorite fallback. They’re spendy, for sure. But at least it’s not raspberries.

“Sure, but you like the Trading Post’s mac ’n’ cheese, remember?” Doesn’t he? Subconsciously I’ve begun deep breathing. Maybe this isn’t such a great idea. I’d hate for things to get awkward for Nina’s family in public.

“Mmm, yum,” my mother says. “I learned to eat an avocado straight out of the skin with a spoon from a girl in college. At the time, that was considered pretty strange behavior.” To me she adds, “Of course, she also listened to Blue Öyster Cult and smoked illegal herbs, so—”