Eventually we broke apart.
“Come on.” Mum picked up my suitcase for me. Just seeing her walk away made my chest go all tight, even though I could follow her. Then I realized that she hadn’t said, “I missed you…”
She turned back to me. “You must be knackered. I’ve booked us into a motel so we can have some time together before we drive up to camp. How does sightseeing in San Francisco sound?”
“It sounds…fab.”
We wheeled our way to a tram that whizzed us along to a multistorey car park. The expanses of space between each thing we needed to get to were massive, especially compared to the on-top-of-each-other-ness of Heathrow airport. Mum was parked on the top floor of the car park, and I shivered in the mist when we got off the tram.
“I thought California was supposed to be, like, hot,” I joked, doing up the zip of my hoody.
My mum smiled. My smile. We had the same smile. I’d forgotten. Seeing her again felt odd; I couldn’t get used to her face. It jarred. Like she was a stranger. But she wasn’t a stranger – she was my mum.
“It is, just not in San Fran. Wait till I get you into my mountains. It’s so hot there, you’ll be praying for a cold fog.”
We walked between rows of cars and stopped unexpectedly outside a huge red monster truck, with giant wheels and blacked-out windows.
Why was Mum calling it San Fran? Whoever calls it San Fran? Why was she so calm? All my intestines were knotted up with repressed emotion.
“This is us.” She unlocked the doors with her beeper.
Her beeper?! In England she’d driven a beat-up Mini with a broken passenger door. When it had been her weekends to take me – the ones when she remembered and actually turned up anyway – she’d announce her arrival by honking its dilapidated horn outside Dad’s house to piss off Penny. I’d had to clamber over her whenever I wanted to get in or out.
“I need a stepladder to get into this thing,” I joked, hoping Mum would notice the undercurrents of judgement in my “funniness”.
She didn’t.
“Hey, you’re as tall as me. You can hop in there just fine.”
I heaved myself up into the front seat as Mum flung my stuff into the back. I dug around in my bag for the present I’d got her, and had it in my hand when she got in next to me.
She spied the gift-wrapped box.
“Is that for me?” she asked, as I held it out tentatively.
I nodded. Really nervous all of a sudden, hoping she liked it…that she understood it.
“Aww, bless you, you didn’t have to get me a present.”
She took it and unwrapped it carefully, not ripping any of the paper but lifting the Sellotape up delicately. She pulled out the small jewellery box, and popped the lid. My heart thud thudded.
“Oh, wow, Amber, it’s beautiful.”
“It’s the Deathly Hallows!” I said, unable to contain myself.
“Oh, yes, of course.” She pulled the shining silver chain out and wrapped it up with her fingers to see the triangular charm. I felt so chuffed with myself – and also a little jealous I didn’t have one too. I’d used all my money buying this one for her.
“I went on the Harry Potter studio tour,” I explained. “It’s so incredible there, I wish you could see it. Anyway, I got this in the gift shop. It’s proper official. JK approved. Do you love it? Do you?”
“Oh yes. It’s beautiful. I’ll put it on straight away.”
Which she did – but I couldn’t help feeling like she wasn’t excited enough… I’d literally squealed when I found it in the shop. I’d literally squealed the whole time on the tour. Mum was the one who read the books to me growing up. She’d curl up next to me in my bed, and keep me up past my bedtime, discussing all our favourite characters. Why wasn’t she squealing? Why was she just starting the engine?
With a grin still plastered over my face, I tried again. “Do you remember that time you face-painted Dark Marks onto all our arms at my birthday party? And then what’s-her-name’s mum, Keira’s mum, she went totally nuts?”
A small smile eked its way onto Mum’s face, but it wasn’t enough of one. Or maybe I was reading too much into it.
“I remember,” she said, but she didn’t add anything to the story. Just indicated left, to steer our way out of the car park. Maybe she was just tired…that was probably it.
Soon we were cruising towards the city, on a motorway full of cars just as gigantic as ours. Mum babbled as she drove.
“I’m so excited about you coming to camp, Amber. Everyone is going to love you so much! It’s all Kevin’s been talking about. I can’t wait for you to get to know him properly. We’ve got a few days before the kids arrive, and then it will be all go-go-go…”
“Mum?”
“Yes, sweetie?” She turned from the windscreen to glance at me.
“You’ve got an…American accent.”
She touched her throat absent-mindedly. “I do?”
“You really do.”
“That’s weird. Everyone here always notices I’m British, right away.”
“That would be the paler than pale skin and freckles, like mine.” I smiled.
“No.” She turned back to concentrate on her driving. “They always say ‘I love your accent’.”
I didn’t love her accent.
The city stretched under us, bits of it piercing through the thick layer of fog. I didn’t feel sleepy or jet-lagged at all, despite it being about three in the morning my time. The nap on the plane was seeing me through. I sat up in my seat, hoping to catch a glimpse of the famous Golden Gate Bridge. But there was just the fog, and an occasional flash of orange.
“I can’t see anything,” I grumbled.
“That’s San Fran for you.”
She’d called it San Fran again.
We got into the heart of the city and stopped chatting so Mum could focus on her driving. We rumbled over steep hills at ridiculous angles and bumped over the metal tramline tracks. I stared out the window, trying to take it all in, feeling like a complete alien. The houses were all painted the sort of colours you could order scooped up in a cone…Pistachio, cherry sorbet, lemon…
Mum pointed down a dark road to our left, all tall houses together.
“That’s where I volunteer at the centre,” she said. “Remember I told you?”
“Yep, I remember.” It was at a centre like that she’d met the dreaded bumchin. An English branch. I wasn’t likely to forget.
“We’re almost there.”
She indicated right and swooped down into an underground car park. Mum turned off the engine and pulled up the handbrake.
“Here!” she said, smiling brightly. “Let’s get your bags into the room and go out for dinner. You must be starving after all that gross airplane food.”
We rolled my stuff into the motel reception and Mum told them our names. My heart hurt a little (a lot) when she used her new surname that wasn’t mine.
“Welcome to the Cow Hollow,” the receptionist beamed, like she was honestly delighted we were there. “Wow, I love your accent. Are you guys from England?”
We nodded and got our keys.
Maybe jet lag was starting to creep in, because none of it felt real as we twisted through endless corridors to find our room, or when we opened the door into the biggest hotel room I’d ever seen, with beds the size of countries. I dropped myself onto one, my long body not even beginning to cover its vast expanse. Mum sat at the writing desk and smiled at me.
“You tired, hon?”
She never used to call me hon… More America.
I turned onto my stomach, sinking into the soft mattress. I suddenly felt really, really homesick. The euphoria of seeing her had peaked, and been replaced with a simmering confusion and sense of just feeling…lost.
I didn’t know this woman in front of me. Not really. I didn’t know this city. This country my mother had chosen over me.