The Nameless Luna novel · Chapter 21 of 32

Chapter 21: Mom

I looked back at the Beaver.

My father sat in the right seat with his face turned away.

The hired pilot shut the engine down. The propeller ticked to a stop.

Behind me, Warrick said, "Your call."

"Walk with me," I said to my mother. "Along the shore. Where they can see us."

She nodded.

The pack stayed by the trucks.

We walked along the edge of the lake, in the old snowmachine tracks, where the snow was packed enough to hold her good boots.

She didn't say anything for a while, and I didn't help.

"I chose it before you were born," she said finally. "The name. I wrote it on the inside of my wrist in pen, so I'd see it all day."

"I know. You told me when I was little."

"At your first full moon I held you up and said it into the roll. You grabbed my hair."

I kept walking.

"I've never forgotten it," she said. "Not one day."

"I know that too."

She stopped.

"How?"

"Because nobody forgets a name for six years by accident. You have to work at it."

She looked out at the lake.

"The first time Annalise cried, I thought she'd die," she said. "She went red, and then blue, and her hands went to her throat."

"I know. I was at the table."

"After that, every time I said it to you, I saw her face like that."

"So you stopped."

"So I stopped. And it was quiet. And she smiled at me."

Her voice cracked.

"And you never cried. You just nodded. Every time. You made it so easy."

That one went in under my ribs and stayed there.

"Did you know?" I said. "What it would do to me?"

She was quiet too long.

"The Christmas you were nineteen," she said. "In the pack hall. Everyone was singing, and you were standing by the door with your hands in your pockets, not singing."

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