The First Day of Spring

by Nancy Tucker

Kids aren’t born loving you. Needing you, maybe. But not loving you. You have to put the work in for love.”

For years I had been hung up on Mam, because your mam was the one who was supposed to fill you up when you felt empty, but she had never done that for me. She had given me dregs and scrapings of warmth, and now that I had seen her again, I believed it was all she had been able to give, but it hadn’t been enough. She was never going to give me enough. I knew, because when she had told me what she wanted, she had talked about going back and making things different for her. She hadn’t talked about doing things better for me. Only one person in Chrissie’s life had loved her in an ordinary, everyday way, the way you love salt or sunlight. Linda hadn’t been able to tie shoelaces

or tell the time, but she had been the cleverest at loving, at loyalty, at giving everything and expecting nothing in return.