Page 55 of With a Cherry On Top

She doesn’t say anything for a moment, and neither do I. “So what are you going to do?” she asks finally.

No fucking clue.

Sadie doesn’t want me there. She doesn’t want Primrose either. She wants Josie. And Josie is the one person I can’t get to go.

“Aaron, did I ever tell you about my mom?”

I frown. “Hm, no. I know you’re not close. That she lives abroad.”

“She left my dad when I was six,” Amelie says, voice quieter now. “Just like you and Sadie.”

I sit up a little, giving her my full attention.

“She says he was toxic,” she continues, “that she needed to get away. And on some level, I understand that. My dad wasn’t the easiest person.”

“But she left you too.”

“Uh-huh.” There’s no bitterness in her voice. “And that? That, I’ll never get. Sometimes love ends. Marriages crash and burn—it happens. But my mom wasn’t content moving to another house. To another town, even. She left the country and never looked back. I’ve seen her three times since.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. And she’s been trying lately, you know? She wants to see me, wants to meet Ian, visit the restaurant.”

“You don’t want her to?”

“Not really,” she says, and it sounds like she’s smiling. “Ichosemy family. I made my own—I don’t need her. So I’m quite happy to keep it at one phone call a month.”

I hesitate. “Sounds like you won’t be celebrating Mother’s Day either.”

“Haven’t celebrated it once in my life since I can remember.”

I roll my shoulders. “Not that I don’t want to hear about all of this, but...Josiewillcome back. She will. Right?”

She’s quiet for a beat, then asks, “What do you think of me, Aaron?”

The question catches me off guard. “What do you mean?”

“Would you say I’m . . . a nice person? Well-adjusted? Happy, caring, successful?”

“All of it and more.”

“You know Ian’s the only one who can give you a raise, right?” she jokes. Then, after a pause, she adds, “I don’t know Josie, and I can’t say whether she will ever come back. But what Idoknow for a fact is that Sadie will be okay.”

My throat tightens.

“It feels like the end of the world right now,” she continues. “I get that. And I’m not saying it’ll be easy. But us girls...we’re resilient. We survive—and then we thrive.”

I close my eyes, letting her words sink in.

“Mother’s Day will be hard,” she admits. “Christmas will be horrible. Until Josie comes back—and maybe even past that—things will be rocky. You will make mistakes, because as much as you try, you won’t be able to be both parents in one. And Sadie will miss her mom. A lot.”

I close my eyes. “Tell me there’s a ‘but.’”

“But,” she says cheerfully, “even with all the mistakes my father’s made, he stuck around. He gave it his all, and he worked on himself. Hell, the last words he ever said to me were ‘I’m proud of you.'” She pauses, and I can almost see her choking up like whenever she brings up her late father. “Trust me, that makes all the difference.”

My throat burns and I scoff, trying to play it off, but my voice betrays me. “I just wanted her to...” My jaw clenches. “To have a normal, happy life. She deserves so much better than this.”

Amelie hums. “Nobody has a ‘normal, happy life.’ And you know what? The few people who do—they’re boring.”