“Come on, Mom; you can do it.”

“No, I can’t! I’m too old. This was a silly idea; I can’t possibly—”

“Mom,” I interrupted with a laugh. “It’s a done deal. We’re already here, the course is already paid for, and all you have to do is walk inside.”

She gave me a look filled with anxiety and wrung her hands.

“I’m going to be surrounded by a bunch of twenty-somethings,” she moaned.

“Sure! It’ll give you a chance to practice your cougar skills.”

“Oh, stop it,” she said, flushing red.

“We’re going to be late,” I said, glancing at the clock. “Come on, I want to see you teach those kids a thing or two about design. Besides, Professor Zain is one of the most fascinating people on the planet. You’re going to love him, and the class, and all of it. And if you don’t get out of the car right now, I swear to God, I won’t let you go dress shopping with me.”

She gasped, wounded to her core. I pursed my lips and gave her my best mom look.

“You’re a cruel child,” she said as she pushed out of the car.

I grinned and followed her up the steps. If there was one thing she wouldn’t risk, it was the chance to help me find the perfectly princess-esque wedding gown.

Of course, Frida had opinions on that, too; she had left sticky fingerprints in all of my magazines on every white dress with poofy sleeves. She was convinced that it wasn’t a princess wedding unless I had poofy sleeves, and I had the sneaking suspicion that I would eventually cave to her wishes; I just hoped that I could find a more modern look which would meet with her approval.

The bustle in the hallway filled me with a peaceful sort of excitement. I felt like I had been away from school for an eternity. I inhaled deeply, amused that the smell of body sprays mingled with paint and pizza could bring me such all-consuming delight.

Practically skipping, I dragged Mom down the hallway toward Professor Zain’s room, following my nose as much as my memory. Art classes had a distinct scent, one which never failed to get my creative juices flowing.

The classroom was only half full when we arrived, and the professor was absorbed in painting fluorescent outlines around classically designed cherubim. The chubby little figures had all been done in the muted tones of the renaissance, which made the modern colors that much more startling.

“Interesting concept,” I said from behind him. “A little grating, though. Maybe you could outline the brights in black to make the figures look like stickers on the canvas—oh! Or, you could give them fluorescent flowers to hold and sort of tie it all together.”

The professor froze with his brush halfway to the canvas.

“There is only one person in the world who would dare critique my work in progress,” he growled intimidatingly.

My mother took half a step back and I yanked her to my side as Professor Zain slowly turned on his stool, glaring fiercely from beneath his bushy eyebrows. As soon as he saw me, though, his expression cleared, breaking into a delighted grin.

“Shelley! My prodigal student, you’ve returned!”

“I sure have,” I said proudly. “And I brought someone with me. Professor Zain, this is my mother, Lisa. Mom, this is my favorite professor in the whole wide world, Professor Alexander Zain.”

“Pleased to meet you,” she said shyly, holding out her hand.

“Oh…the pleasure is all mine,” he said gallantly, rising from his stool to bow over her hand. “I see now where Shelley came by her striking features. You are quite the handsome woman, Lisa. Will you be attending my class?”

“I will,” she said, blushing. “I’m attempting to finish up an ancient degree which I abandoned back before Shelley was born. I planned on becoming a fashion designer, you see, but that was so long ago…nobody wears leg warmers anymore, do they?”

The professor chuckled, and I began to fade backward toward a seat. I hadn’t expected sparks to fly, but I knew enough to get out of the way before I got burned.

I sat just close enough to eavesdrop, and grinned as Professor Zain took Mom through a verbal journey over the design trends of the past twenty-five years. They were still talking when the class was full, and it took a student loudly dropping a palette on the floor before the professor’s attention returned to the class.

“Oh my gosh,” Mom said, glowing like a schoolgirl as she slid into the seat beside me. “You were so right, Shelley. I am going to love this class.”

I grinned into my bag as I withdrew my supplies for the class. My steady, predictable mother had suddenly transformed into a giggling schoolgirl.

“You have my blessing,” I whispered to her as we began to sketch.

“Oh, hush,” she said, turning bright red. “There’s nothing to bless. We had a conversation, that’s all.”

“That’s all, huh? I distinctly heard him offer to tutor you personally over a pint.”

“He’s a very dedicated teacher, and he knows talent when he sees it,” she sniffed, turning her nose up.

“He must be psychic if he saw talent in you before he even saw your portfolio,” I pointed out.

“Pay attention,” she hissed.

I kept my peace and turned my attention back on Professor Zain, who had eyes only for my mother. Shaking my head at the craziness of the world, I threw myself wholeheartedly into my classwork.

Jenna met us after class for coffee and sandwiches at the little café I had always passed but had never took the time to stop at, the last time I was enrolled. She was almost pink beneath her glossy black sunglasses, and her usually serious expression was sabotaged by a secretive smile which refused to be banished no matter how hard she tried.

“What are you so giddy about?” Mom asked, attempting a sharp tone but only succeeding in sounding mildly curious. She was in her own blissful haze, and even her maternal instincts couldn’t sink her dream ship.

“Oh, nothing,” Jenna said lightly, but the pink of her cheeks darkened.

“Yeah, whatever,” I said suspiciously. “Spill it.”

“No, no, no, I wouldn’t want to take the spotlight off of the soon-to-be Mrs. Millionaire.”

“Billionaire,” I corrected with a grin. “And don’t you dare use me as a scapegoat. What’s got you all fluttery and girlish?”

Jenna bit her lip, but a sunny smile broke through in spite of her. “Okay, okay,” she said in a rush. “You know that woman I told you about forever ago?”

“The TV exec?”

“Yes!”

“I figured nothing came of that. You didn’t mention her again after that.” I raised a quizzical brow and sipped my coffee.

“Wait, what TV exec?” Mom asked, shaking off her own daydream.

“This woman I’ve been seeing, Jade Ellen Quinn. Isn’t that a great name? I can’t get over how great her name is. Anyway, we’ve been seeing each other for about six months now, and she just signed a contract to host her own talk show. We were celebrating last night, and…” With a wordless squeal, Jenna stuck her hand across the table to show us an engagement ring on a braided gold band.

“Oh my God!”

“What? I haven’t even met her!” Mom’s distress was tempered only by her admiration of the ring. “She has good taste, though. That’s a point in her favor. And she’s ambitious, which is good. I mean, considering how ambitious you are, a relationship could easily become unbalanced if the other person wasn’t. But Jenna, why haven’t you told us about her? Why haven’t we met her? Is she isolating you? Manipulating you? You might be a grown woman, Jenna, but I will still—”

“Throw down with any woman for me, yes I know,” Jenna laughed. “It’s nothing like that, I swear. At first, it was because she’s so different from my usual type, I didn’t want to second guess myself before I was sure. Then it started getting really serious, and I didn’t want to jinx it, and honestly, I was afraid that your advice would be colored by this whole thing with Miles. And then Shelley got engaged, and I didn’t want to step on that. I still don’t—I feel pretty bad about this—but I just couldn’t keep it in anymore!”

“Yeah, you look like you’re real torn up about it,” I said with a sarcastic twist of my lips. “But I don’t mind, really. I want to meet her, too! You should bring her tomorrow.”

Jenna’s brow furrowed, and she pulled her phone out. I saw her calendar reflected in her sunglasses, and I sighed.

“You really forgot? Jenna! Tomorrow is the first wedding planning party, remember?”

“Oh, crap. I completely forgot; I’m so sorry. I’ll totally be there, what time?”

“Noon,” I told her firmly. “Put it in your phone. And bring the fiancée!”

“Okay, okay,” Jenna said with a grin.

“Jenna and Jade,” I said, shaking my head. “Alliteration and everything. Why didn’t I get an alliterative partner?”

“Because you got the billionaire,” Jenna pointed out. “You can’t have both, Shelley; it would tear the fabric of reality. Law of nature, look it up.”

I laughed at her and rolled my eyes. Mom looked from one of us to the other as her eyes filled with tears.

“I can’t believe both of my babies are getting married!” Her voice wavered with emotion. “What am I going to do now?”

“Alexander Zain,” I said wryly.

She glared at me and sniffed, drying her tears in a huff of indignation. Jenna cocked her head at me, and I filled her in on Mom’s first day of school.

“Damn, get it, Mom,” Jenna said with a grin.

“Quiet, both of you,” she snapped without conviction. “It was just a conversation, that’s all.”

“A conversation with a clear ‘to be continued over drinks’,” I pointed out with a snicker.

“Well, it’s about damn time,” Jenna said firmly. “Twenty-one years is way too long to go without a date. Your dry spell is officially old enough to drink.”

Mom’s mouth dropped open in shock, then she burst into laughter. “How on earth did I raise such obscene daughters?” she asked rhetorically.

“Not obscene,” Jenna objected. “Just blunt. It’s how I get to the truth of the matter.”

The rest of the meal passed in good humor, and we sat and talked for hours longer than we had intended to. Fortunately, Miles was fully enjoying his time alone with the twins, and I figured it would do them all good. He had a lot of missed quality time to make up for, and they needed a new victim for their shenanigans. They had grown bored with driving me out of my mind.

As I sat under the umbrella listening to Jenna and Mom laugh, a deep happiness flowed through me; for all of our struggles and fights, for all of our missteps and disagreements, here we were—each of us starting a new chapter of our lives in an unexpected way, each of us blissfully happy and filled with hope. I was confident now that—no matter what happened in our lives, good or bad—we would always be there to support one another. Before I was forced to move home, during the lowest point in my life, I really didn’t know. I guess I learn best by doing, or maybe I just need things to be proved to me in a tangible sort of way.

Either way, I was happy here. Happier than I had ever been.

The planning party the following day was just as enjoyable, if slightly more awkward at first with the addition of Jade Ellen Quinn. She radiated power and authority, seeming to fill the room with her short, trim frame. She had a presence that drew you in and intimidated you all at once, and I could instantly see why Jenna had fallen for her so hard.

“Did you pick out the rings?” I asked her, examining the matching braided gold ring on her finger.

“I did,” she said confidently. “Do you like them?”

“I love them,” I told her earnestly. “They’re fantastic. Do you—oh!”

A loud clatter interrupted me, followed immediately by a string of curses in my mother’s voice.

Rushing outside, I found my mom glaring down at a fallen trellis topped with chipped shingles. Broken clay pots poked out from between the latticework, along with the occasional sad and broken flower.

“I swear, this whole place is falling apart.” Frustration traced every line of her body, drawing her shoulders together in an almost comical posture. “Do you know what did this? A sparrow. A freaking sparrow!”

“No, it wasn’t a sparrow,” Jenna said, lifting her sunglasses to peer at the roof. “Dry rot did that. The sparrow just helped.”

“Dry rot,” Mom spat. “And yesterday, I found a termite on the front porch. Creepy little things. Not to mention the crack.”

“The one in the basement?” I asked.

She nodded. “It’s grown six inches since the last quake. This place is going to fall down around my ears one of these days.”

“What’s falling down around whose ears?” Miles asked from behind us.

He pushed through the side gate, herding the twins in front of him.

“The house is falling apart,” I explained, kissing him.

“That’s not good,” he said, concern furrowing his brows. “Sorry to hear that, Lisa.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Mom sighed. “I’m being dramatic. It’s not that bad; I’m just tired of sticking the stupid thing back together. It’s half duct-tape and gum at this point.”

“Well, there’s your problem,” Jade said with mock seriousness. “Chewing gum is a terrible adhesive.”

It lightened the mood, and Miles and I shared a look as the others shared a laugh.

“You don’t need to worry about your mom; I have a plan,” he murmured in my ear.

This was news to me, but I couldn’t claim to be surprised; if I’d learnt one thing in the past few months, it was that Miles’ generosity knew no bounds, and I knew he still felt indebted to my mom.

“I can’t wait to marry you,” I murmured to him.

“Ditto, my love,” he whispered back, meeting my lips in a kiss.

And I knew that he meant it; and I knew that for all they say about settling down, for us, this was merely the beginning.