Page 89 of Weather Girl

“It’s fine, it’s fine. This is why I always have spare shirts.” He sucks in a breath as I dab the towel against his chest. “I can, uh—handle that.”

“Right. Right.” I pass him the paper towel, taking care not to let my fingertips graze his. I take a few steps back until I bump up against the counter. “Have a good show. I’m sorry about your shirt.”

“Thanks.” He’s halfway to the door when he says, “Ari?”

I turn around. “Yeah?”

“I’m not angry with you,” he says, and I hope I’m not imagining the softness in his expression. “Just wanted you to know that.”

•••

THAT EVENING, I brave rush-hour traffic to meet my mom at Redmond’s outdoor mall.

If you think it’s weird to have an outdoor mall in a place that’s cloudy 80 percent of the year, so does everyone who lives in Redmond. I don’t remember Redmond Town Center being built, but my mom does, and every time we went there as kids, she’d shake her head as we pulled into a parking spot, muttering, “I don’t know what they were thinking.”

My mother’s already at the coffee shop where we agreed to meet, a place with cushy chairs and enormous pastries and folk music playing in the background. I order a blueberry muffin and take a seat next to her in a corner, beneath some watercolors of the Pacific Northwest on sale from a local artist.

“How was work?” she asks. She’s dressed business casual, tapered black pants and a coral peplum blouse. Her hair is loose and wavy, and she hasn’t dyed out the grays yet. I wonder if she will. “It’s strange to ask that after having seen you on TV. I always thought I’d get used to it, but nope, it’s still surreal to turn to channel six and see your face.”

“You still watch me?”

“Almost every day,” she says, and perhaps this shouldn’t surprise me, but it does.

I tell her more about the recent reorg, Torrance, my mentee before asking her the same question. It’ll never not feel a bit odd: my mother and me, two adults discussing our jobs.

“I’m actually looking at retiring within the next couple years,” she says, “which is exciting. I didn’t realize it would be a possibility this soon.”

“Retiring? Wow.” My mother is almost sixty, but somehow I can’t picture her retired. Maybe because I’ve always viewed her through a certain lens retirement doesn’t quite match up with.

Because now, of course, my mind swims with what she’ll do with all that free time. If she’ll have enough to keep her busy, or if she’ll fall into one of her old patterns.

“There’s this guy in my department who’s been there about as long as I have, and we’ve been talking about it a lot lately.”

If there will be another man to drag her down.

“Talking,” I repeat, and her brow furrows as she gets my meaning.

“I think I want to take it slow. I’m not exactly eager to jump into anything serious. I haven’t been single in a while,” she muses. “It’s kind of nice—nicer than I was expecting, if I’m being honest, only to have to worry about myself.”

“That’s good. I’m really glad.” I pick at my muffin, still feeling as though we’re only skimming the surface of what I want to be discussing. I have to just go for it—I’ll regret it if I don’t. “And you’re... feeling okay? If that’s all right to ask?”

She goes quiet as she excavates a chocolate chip. Apparently, it’s easier for us to converse with baked goods than with each other. Because this is another thing my younger self wouldn’t have believed I’d do as an adult: talk to my mother about our mental health.

“Some of the medications had harsh side effects at first,” she says, not making eye contact. “That was something I was anxious about. I told the doctors I’d go to therapy the way they wanted me to, but no meds. I wanted to still feel like myself, you know?”

My heart sinks. “Oh.”

But she shakes her head, and when her dark eyes meet mine, there’s a conviction there I’ve never seen before. “The therapist I talked to—she was amazing. And I had the time to do some research, and, well... the meds on the market today are quite different from the ones I heard about growing up. I thought they would numb me completely. That I wouldn’t feel anything at all. I always thought it was better to feel too much than to feel nothing. But I wanted to get better so badly, Ari. I was terrified, but I agreed to give medication a try.”

“Mom. I—I’m proud of you.” The words are fragile, delicate things. I’m not sure if I’ve uttered them aloud. If I’m allowed to be proud of her.

“That was why they kept me so long. They wanted to make sure they had the right meds, the right dosage. But now that my body’s gotten used to them... I’m not sure I can even express how much they’ve helped. Not an instant fix, of course, but—well, you know.” A bite of her muffin, and then: “It makes me wish I’d started them much sooner.”

I let that hang between us, processing it. All the things I’ve never said bang against the inside of my brain. All the things I used to want from her.

“Yeah. I do, too.”

“Ari,” she says, but I’m not finished.

---