Page 4 of Finding Forever

“It’s a real restaurant, Mom. A real kitchen with a real line, and cooks who’ve been there longer than I’ve been alive. I’d be the youngest person there by ten years.”

“She’s watched you work,” Beth told Kayla proudly. “She knows exactly how old you are, and she still offered you the job.”

“Maybe she’s desperate.”

Beth smiled. “Maybe she’s smart.”

Kayla laughed, but it frayed at the end. “I keep thinking I should start somewhere smaller. Get a couple of years’ experience, and then⁠—”

“And then what?” Beth asked her daughter. “Wait until you feel ready? Sweetheart, nobody ever feels ready. You feel terrified, and you do it anyway. And one morning, you wake up and discover you’ve been doing whatever you were worried about for a year.”

Kayla sighed. “You’re probably right, but there’s the wedding, too. I’d be studying for my final exams and planning a reception at the same time, and⁠—”

“The wedding is one day, and most of it is already organized.” Beth didn’t have to think about what she’d say to Kayla. The answers were simply there, the way they always were when somebody else needed them. “The venue is booked, your dress fitting is on the calendar, and the cake is mine to worry about, not yours.”

There was silence on the line.

“You make it sound so easy,” Kayla said at last.

Beth could feel how unsure her daughter was. She picked up a dishcloth and wiped down the counter. “Somebody has opened a door for you, and the only question you need to ask yourself is whether you’ll walk through it.”

“That’s what you always say.” Kayla replied softly. “Every time I was worried about something, you said the worst thing wasn’t failing. It was standing outside a door you wanted, and telling yourself it belonged to someone else.”

Beth stopped wiping the counter.

“Mom? Are you still there?”

“I’m here.” Beth’s own words, coming back at her in her daughter’s voice, had knocked the wind out of her.

Kayla blew out a long sigh. “I knew what you’d say. I think I just needed to hear you say it. I’m calling Chef Aldana in the morning to accept.”

“Good girl,” Beth said.

“What about you? What are you up to tonight?” Kayla asked.

The letter sat in plain view. Beth looked at it and very nearly said, nothing much.

“Paperwork,” she said instead. “Nothing that can’t keep. Go celebrate with that fiancé of yours, and call me tomorrow once your new job is official.”

“I will,” Kayla told her. “Love you, Mom.”

“Love you, too. I’m so proud of you.” Beth set the phone down and stood in the middle of her kitchen.

The worst thing wasn’t failing. It was standing outside a door you wanted, and telling yourself it belonged to someone else.

She had said those words, or something similar, a hundred times. To Kayla at sixteen, unsure about entering the state pastry competition. At nineteen, frightened to apply for a culinary scholarship. At every step where her daughter hesitated, Beth had been right there, certain and unbudging, pointing at the door.

And here she was, sitting on the other side of the same lesson, with a refusal started in her best handwriting.

I was about to do exactly what I told Kayla not to do.

The thought didn’t arrive gently. It landed like a dropped pan, loud and impossible to ignore. For twenty-six years, Beth had taught her daughter to walk toward the things that frightened her, and the whole time she’d been practicing the opposite—shrinking a life until it fit safely inside a committee, a casserole, or a day of the week.

Beth picked up the letter she’d started to write to Natalie, and slowly tore it in half.

Then, before she could second-guess herself, she found Natalie’s number and pressed call.

It rang twice.