Her mother found the bark tea.
It was in the cabinet above the coffee maker, in a cloth bag with a paper label that said Nadia's Writing in careful capitals. It was just there, alongside the normal tea boxes and the spare coffee filters and the hot cocoa that her mother kept for emergencies. And it didn't look dramatic or incriminating; it just looked like tea.
But her mother, whose job was literally the examination of things that other people had in their mouths and didn't want scrutinized, noticed the bark tea the way she noticed everything that came into her house.
"What's this?" Diane Vasquez held up the cloth bag on a Sunday morning, in the tone of voice she used for questions she already had a partial answer to.
"Herbal tea." Mara was eating a second breakfast, because post-transformation hunger was real and her mother had started buying food in quantities that she accepted without comment, bless her.
"Mara."
"It's from a friend. Nadia. She makes herbal stuff."
"What friend named Nadia?"
"A new friend." She met her mother's eyes. "I've been spending time with some new people. It's good. They're — they're supportive."
Diane set the bag down and sat at the table across from her daughter. She looked at Mara the way she had been looking at Mara since October with an expression that Mara recognized as her mother's version of I am waiting for you to tell me what is happening without me having to ask.
"Your voice," Diane said.
"I know."
"And you're taller."
"I know."
"And you're eating constantly and sleeping differently and you came home last Saturday morning at six a.m. with mud on your jacket." Diane folded her hands on the table. "I'm not angry. I want to be clear that I'm not angry. I am, however, paying attention."
"I know, Mom."
"Are you safe?"
"Yes. Genuinely."
"Are the people you're spending time with safe?"
"Yes." She paused. "They're — good people. Weird, but good."
Diane looked at the bark tea and then at her daughter and the silence in the kitchen was a different kind of silence from the one in Abuela's kitchen — not warm, exactly, but honest, the silence of two people who love each other and are trying to be careful with each other.
"There are things I'm figuring out," Mara said. "About myself. About who I am. And I'm not ready to talk about all of it yet, and I know that's hard, and I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize for not being ready."
"But I want you to know —" She stopped. Started again. "I want you to know that the way I've been feeling. The being uncomfortable. The —" She gestured vaguely at herself. "I think I'm finding my way toward something that fits better. And it's scary, but it's not wrong. It feels like the opposite of wrong."
Diane was quiet for a long time.
"Abuela knows," she said finally. Not a question.
"Some of it."
"More than I know?"
"Yes. I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize." Diane reached across the table and put her hand over her daughter's, the strong careful hands of a woman who knew how to handle delicate things. "When you're ready. All of it or some of it or just — when you want to tell me anything. I'll be here."
"I know," Mara said. "I know you will."
Diane squeezed once and let go. "Finish your breakfast," she said. "You're clearly starving."