Seeing my mom laugh, dress up, and fall in love again after so many lonely years should have been enough to quiet my doubts. Instead, one unanswered question kept growing louder every time Richard came to dinner.
My mom hadn’t hummed in 11 years! Not since Dad died. But there she was on Sunday afternoon, standing in front of her bedroom mirror, humming an old Sinatra tune while she clipped on the pearl earrings Dad gave her for their 30th anniversary.
I watched her from the doorway, arms folded, trying not to cry.
“Mom, you look beautiful!”
“Oh, stop,” she said, waving me off with a smile. “It’s just dinner, Avery.”
Not since Dad died.
“You’re even wearing the red dress!”
“I’m allowed to wear the red dress.”
“You bought that red dress recently, and it’s already been out of the closet more than my winter coat!”
Mom laughed, and it was such a nice sound that I almost forgot why I’d come upstairs in the first place. Which, honestly, was to snoop.
“I’m allowed to wear the red dress.”
My mom had been alone for 11 years, and now she was floating around the house like a woman in a shampoo commercial.
The reason was named Richard. He was 52, lived alone as far as we knew, and met her at the community gardening club. He complimented her tomato plants.
Within a month, he was bringing her sunflowers.
She was floating around the house.
Within two months, he’d fixed her porch railing without being asked. He remembered that Chloe, my 15-year-old, liked mint chocolate chip and always brought her a pint.
Within months, I saw a version of Mom I thought we’d lost with Dad. She bought the red dress, started wearing perfume again, and sometimes smiled at her phone like a teenager.
I wanted to like him. I really did.
He’d fixed her porch railing.
***
“So, what time is he coming?” I asked.
“Five. And he’ll need to leave by 7:30 p.m. again, so let’s eat by six.”
I paused halfway to the stairs.
“Seven-thirty again?”
“Avery.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You said it with your face.”
“What time is he coming?”
***
Downstairs, Chloe was setting the table with the good plates, the ones Mom only pulled out for company. My daughter had her grandmother’s cheekbones and her father’s stubborn chin, and lately, she’d been watching Richard like a cat watches a screen door.
“Cinderella’s coming to dinner,” Chloe announced, folding a napkin into something vaguely swan-shaped.
“Be nice.”
“I’m being nice. I’m just saying. The man runs on a Cinderella schedule.”
“Cinderella’s coming to dinner.”
“Chloe.”
“What?! He does! Every Sunday, boom, 7:30 p.m., out the door like the pumpkin’s about to blow.” She held up the crooked napkin swan and squinted at it. “I’m only half joking, by the way.”
I opened my mouth to defend him, then closed it because she wasn’t wrong.
Six months of Sunday dinners, and the man had never once stayed past 7:30 p.m. He was always polite about it. Always had a reason. But the reasons kept shuffling, like someone dealing a new hand every week.
I opened my mouth to defend him.
“Set out the water glasses,” I said instead.
“Deflection…”
I gave my daughter a look.
Mom came down the stairs then, and Chloe whistled low. Mom swatted at her, blushed like a schoolgirl, and asked if her lipstick was too much. It wasn’t. It was perfect.
She looked 10 years younger than she had at Christmas!
I gave my daughter a look.
***
Richard arrived exactly at 5 p.m., holding a bouquet of daisies and a bottle of the sparkling grape juice Chloe liked because she was too young for wine. That charming man shook my hand, kissed my mother’s cheek, and asked my daughter about her history project.
He was, on paper, wonderful.
But at 7:29 p.m., he’d be gone.
He was, on paper, wonderful.
Chloe caught my eye across the kitchen while Richard was in the living room with Mom, but didn’t say anything. She just tapped her wrist, mouthed the numbers seven-three-zero, and raised one eyebrow so high it nearly touched her hairline.
