Seven Letters from Paris by Samantha Vérant

at a Holiday Inn in Kentucky. You guys were late. I was pacing the lobby of the hotel, waiting. Finally, I saw Nanny’s red Dodge Duster pull into the parking lot, saw your little strawberry blond head in the backseat. I screamed, ‘My daughter, my daughter!’ People must have thought I was crazy.”
    â€œAnd then—”
    â€œI ran out into the parking lot, opened the door, pulled you out of your car seat, and twirled you around and around, me crying like a fool, you giggling away. Once they figured out what was going on, everybody in the lobby applauded. They were pressed up against the window of the hotel, I swear.”
    I shot my mom a sideways glance. She was getting all teary eyed. I was too. “Do you ever regret it?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou had to put your dreams aside.” I choked back my words. “For me.”
    My mom had had big aspirations when she was younger. She was going to be a famous ballerina, dancing in Swan Lake , fluttering around in tutus and pink satin toe shoes with the New York City Ballet. At the age of eighteen, she’d moved to Manhattan to pursue this lofty ambition. She moved into one of those group apartments for girls, living with hopeful actresses, models, and dancers. As she waited for her dancing career to take off, she cocktail-waitressed at one of New York’s most illustrious clubs, Salvation, on West Fourth and Seventh. Rock stars hung out there—legends like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, along with wannabes like the guitar-playing Chuck, whose claim to fame was jamming with Jimi Hendrix.
    A small-town Southern girl who moved around from military base to military base in her youth, my mother had never met a guy like Chuck before: he was a bad boy, dark and dangerous. He swept her off her feet and they married then moved to California, where he pursued his dreams of becoming a musician and she put her dreams on hold, working as a sales clerk in a clothing boutique. When she became pregnant with me, her toe shoes were hung up on a hook of unfulfilled dreams.
    â€œSam, dreams change.” Mom squeezed my hand. “And I’ve been living vicariously through you. I’ve tried to give you all the opportunities I didn’t have. Like performing arts school. Like college.”
    I gulped. “Well, at least you were a top model in Chicago.”
    â€œA top junior model,” she corrected. “That’s how I supported us. It was just you and me—”
    â€œUntil Dad came along.”
    Before she’d met Tony, we lived in a basement apartment and she sometimes worked two jobs to pay the bills when bookings were slow. She made sure I had everything I needed—food on the table, clothes on my back, or a new Barbie doll. Funnily, I had never realized how very poor we were. She’d always provided for me, surrounding me with love.
    My mom may not have achieved her dream of becoming a prima ballerina, but her love of dance turned into a career in the fitness industry. Now she was a volunteer, teaching yoga at the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Administration, helping veterans overcome post-traumatic stress disorder, brain injuries, and drug and alcohol addictions—a program she was instrumental in creating that was now going nationwide. I was so proud of her.
    I was about to find myself in the same position she’d found herself in so long ago—broke, heavyhearted from a breakup, and about to move back home to her parents. The only difference was that I wasn’t twenty-one with a small infant; I was almost forty and childless. It dawned on me that our lives may have taken different paths, but my mother was exactly like me. I could talk to her—really talk to her—and not just about the latest beauty treatments. With a thirty-five-hour road trip ahead of us, we had plenty of time.
    â€œI know we talked about leaving on Sunday, but can we leave tomorrow?” I asked.
    â€œI think