Free Forever An Ex by Victoria Christopher Murray Page B

too.”
    â€œWow!” I said. Not because of the number, though I had no idea there were that many countries. The wow was for how my daughter so often blew me away.
    â€œI have this big paper due for world geography and you should see all the pictures I’ve collected,” she said. In a single motion, she swooped up her phone, logged in, and then in less than ten seconds had a montage of pictures on the screen.
    â€œLook at this, Mom. The Leaning Tower of Pisa. Can you imagine being right there to take that picture?”
    â€œWow!” I exclaimed again. And that was all I said ’cause, though I’d heard of the Leaning Tower, I had no idea where I had to be to take the picture.
    â€œCan you imagine being in Italy?” she asked me, and schooled me at the same time.
    â€œNo, I can’t.”
    â€œAnd look at these.”
    Angel took me on a trip around the world: from the Taj Mahal in India (“Mom, did you know that this was built in the seventeenth century?”) to the Great Wall of China (“Mom, the wall is something like five thousand miles long!”), I sat at that little table and received an amazing lesson from my own child.
    Not only did I admire the pictures, but I admired my daughter’s knowledge and zest for all of this. Her mind and life were so different from what I’d experienced at her age. When I was eleven all that impressed me were the drug dealers and their girls who always had their hair and nails done, who wore the freshest clothes and the baddest gold earrings.
    But my daughter lived beyond her neighborhood. She had grand dreams. She had aspirations at eleven that I didn’t even have now.
    â€œHave you ever wanted to go to any of these places, Mom?”
    I didn’t want my child to know that her dreams were far greater than mine. So, I said, “I’ve thought about it, but my priority has always been you. Once you were born, that’s all I’ve been thinking about.”
    Her eyes got wide. “You’ve wanted to travel but you didn’t because of me?”
    Clearly, I’d said the wrong thing. “No! I’m just saying . . .” And I paused right there. Why was I lying to my child? “You know, I haven’t had much of a desire to go anywhere,” I said truthfully. “I love Los Angeles. This is one of the best cities in the world.”
    â€œBut loving where you live doesn’t mean that you won’t love other places,” she said. “I want to see”—she spread her arms wide—“the world! And by the time I get old, like to thirty, I’m sure they’ll even have trips to outer space, like to Mars or the moon. And I’m gonna be on one of those spaceships.”
    In that moment I more than loved my daughter, I truly respected this child.
    â€œThen that’s my hope for you,” I said. “I pray that you get to see the world every single chance you get.”
    She grinned. “Do you really mean that?”
    â€œOf course.” I scooped the last bit of my dinner from the bowl. “I want you to have every desire of your heart.” I paused. “And you know what? Maybe we’ll do that together. Maybe during the summer, we’ll go somewhere.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œYup, and you can even pick where you want to go.”
    â€œI want to go to Paris.” She pulled one more picture up on her phone. “Look at this.”
    Now, this was a picture I’d seen. “Ah, the Eiffel Tower. I know where that is,” I bragged. “In France.”
    â€œYes, Paris,” Angel said as if her answer were more correct than mine.
    â€œOkay, so that’s where we’ll go!”
    She put down her phone and lowered her eyes at the same time. “I have a chance to go to Paris now.” She looked up at me. “Like right now. Like next week.”
    I laughed. I had no idea how Angel thought she could go