“I’m sorry.”

“I hate it. Running equals dreamless nights.”

“Well, that makes a lot more sense than the basketball excuse.”

“It helps for basketball too.”

“I’m sure.” After several minutes he said, “You learned how to ride your bike when you were four. I was so jealous because I still had training wheels.”

I was relieved he had switched to our useless-facts game and said, “I remember your training wheels.”

“You do? Because right after you learned how to ride your bike, I spent that entire Saturday learning how to ride without them. You shamed me into it.”

I smiled and tried to think of something I remembered about him as a child, to match his fact. “How about in the first grade when you told your teacher that my dad was really your dad and you yelled ‘This man is trying to kidnap me’ when your father tried to take you home? Your dad was so embarrassed.”

“Yes, that was back in the days when I was jealous you all had each other and I didn’t have any siblings.”

“Now you’re trapped in the craziness. You’re one of us, baby, whether you want to be or . . .” I trailed off as his real intention of bringing up my bike-riding hit me. He wasn’t jumping back into the game. “Wait. I was four?”

“Yes.”

“So my mom was alive when I learned how to ride my bike.” I searched my memory, trying hard to picture her there, out in front of the house, watching me learn. I could clearly picture my dad holding on to the back of my bike, running along beside me. I kept telling him to let go. He wouldn’t. Was my mom watching us?

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Just let me ride around the block,” I had said. “I’ll go with her,” Jerom offered. He had been riding circles around me. He must’ve been almost nine at the time. We went around the block, and it wasn’t until the first corner that I realized I hadn’t practiced turning without training wheels yet. Fear stopped me from trying and I ran straight into the street sign. Jerom picked me up, put me back on the bike, and pointed me in the right direction. I crashed on every single corner, but made it home with only one scraped knee.

Had my mom taken care of it?

No. It was my dad. I knew that. I remembered sitting on the counter as he blew on it and told me I was tough. How was it possible I could have these detailed memories and not remember different times, different events, where my mom spent time with me?

“She looked a lot like you do now.”

My throat constricted a little. “Yeah.” I already knew that. Aside from the wedding picture in the hall, we had a box of pictures of her. That’s how I remembered her, in still snapshots—standing next to me when I blew out three candles on a cake, looking up in surprise from where she sat on the couch reading a book, wearing a baseball cap and cheering on Jerom at his Little League game. I remembered the pictures, not the events. “What else do you remember about her?”

“She was quiet. . . .” He hesitated. “She used to come over and talk to my mom. One time I went into the kitchen where they were talking and she was crying.”

“What?”

“I remember it clearly because I was afraid my mom would get mad at me for interrupting them.”

“What would my mom have to be sad about?”

“I’m not sure. My mom was rubbing her back and she was—”

“How old were you?” I adjusted my back against the fence.

“I don’t know. Around seven, I guess.”

“How could you remember that?”

“It’s just one of those vivid memories.”

Irrational anger surged in my chest and I wasn’t sure why. “Well, maybe she was worried about your mom. Maybe she was pleading with your mom to leave your jerk of a dad.”

“My dad didn’t start drinking until his back injury five years ago.” His voice was tight, hurt.

I stood. “Well, my mom had a perfect life, so I don’t know what she’d have to be sad about.”

“Charlie.”

“I’m tired.” I went back in the house, letting the door shut harder than I should’ve.

The next morning I woke up to find Gage looking through the makeup catalog Amber had given me. “Is there something you need to tell me?” he asked. “Since when do you . . .”

I threw my pillow at his head. “Maybe I decided to go girly.”

“As if. Dad would freak if he saw you in this much makeup. Plus, it’s not you.”

I didn’t understand what that meant. I stared at the girl on the front of the catalog he held. She was soft and feminine and beautiful—like the wedding picture of my mom in the hall. So which part of that wasn’t me?

I turned onto my stomach and put my arms over my head. Who was I kidding? None of that was me. “Someone just brought it by my work the other day.”

“Amber?” he asked, turning the catalog toward me and showing me her picture in the front where she had circled her name in blue ink. “Is that this girl here? Because if so, you have to introduce us. She’s hot.”

I rolled out of bed and snatched the catalog from him. “What do you want?”

“We’re playing soccer on the beach. Let’s go.”

“I don’t feel like it today.”

He stopped cold, then looked around like he was in some alternate world. “Um . . . what? You don’t feel like playing soccer?” He put his hand on my forehead, then turned me in a full circle. “What have you done with my sister?”

Truth was, I didn’t feel like seeing Braden because I knew I’d behaved badly the night before. What he said had caught me off guard, and I ended up throwing him and his family under a bus to make myself feel better. And even though I knew it hurt him, what he had said still bothered me, so I wasn’t quite ready to apologize.

“I have to work in a few hours.” I didn’t have to work today at all. He didn’t notice my lie.

“That whole work thing is really cramping your style. You need to talk to Dad about the fact that you’ve learned your lesson. I’m sure he just wanted to see if you’d get a job.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll talk to him soon.” Later. I was finally making good money . . . and work wasn’t as bad as it had seemed at first. It was something different that my brothers had never done, and I kind of liked that.

“So really? No soccer?”

“Really.”

As I was folding shirts on tables at work the next day, Linda began folding next to me. “Your aura is blue today. Most of the time that means sadness. Is everything okay?”

Wow, even my aura was upset about my tiff with Braden. “I’m fine.” I folded another shirt. “It’s just weird when a belief you’ve had your whole life is suddenly challenged.”

“What belief is that?”

“Nothing. I just pictured someone a certain way, and maybe they weren’t that way at all.” Maybe I had no memories of my mom because she was never around.

“That’s hard, when someone doesn’t meet our expectations.” She moved around to the other side of the table. “Sometimes we expect more than people are capable of giving at that moment.”

Shouldn’t a mother be capable of being there for her kids? Was that too much to expect?

She was there. It was my memories that weren’t.

“Honey.” Linda touched my hand. I wasn’t used to such a soft touch. It made my stomach feel hollow. I moved my hand to the next shirt to break the contact. “If you need to go home, I understand.”

“No. No, I don’t. I’m totally fine.” And I was. I didn’t need to get caught up in the stupid emotion of this. I could shake it off.

“Do you want to talk about it? Tell me more about this person?”

“No.”

She paused as if expecting me to change my mind. I wasn’t going to change my mind.

“Okay. I’m going to crunch some numbers in the back.”

“Sounds good.”

I continued folding shirts. A movement by the window caught my eye, and I looked up in time to see a mother and daughter walk by arm in arm. The two of them walking together made me think of how it could’ve been now if my mom were still here. We would’ve spent time together—talked, laughed, shared stories only she would understand, shared secrets I couldn’t tell anyone else. The pit in my stomach seemed to expand with that feeling. I didn’t like it. Why was I suddenly feeling like something was missing in my life? I had a great life. Linda and her concerned looks and gentle touch didn’t need to come around and make me think my life wasn’t amazing. I’ll run eight miles in the morning. That would take care of this.