Then she kissed the top of my head and changed the subject.
That became her standard answer.
I asked again when I was eleven, during a phase when I thought tattoos were the coolest thing in the world.
I asked again at fifteen, when I briefly decided I might get the same flower someday so we could have matching tattoos.
And I asked again in my twenties, when I became curious about who my mother had been before she became “Mom.”
Every time, she gave me some variation of the same answer.
She had been young.
She had made a choice.
End of story.
There was only one time I pushed harder.
I was nineteen and home from college for the summer.
We were washing dishes together when I asked again.
She gave me her usual response.
I laughed.
“Come on, Mom. It’s just a tattoo. Why do you act like it’s some huge secret?”
Her hands stopped moving in the soapy water.
Something passed across her face.
At nineteen, I couldn’t identify it.
Now I know it was sadness.
“Some things are just for me, Emma,” she said softly. “Maybe you’ll understand when you’re older.”
I rolled my eyes and let it go.
Eventually, I stopped asking.
My mother’s name was Helen.
She was the kind of woman everybody depended on.
