Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
He remembers me.
If I smile, I turn into a cat.
"Do you want kids?" is a perfectly acceptable question.
I knocked. I never knocked. So when Mom finally opened the door, saw John hovering behind me, she nearly slapped me. Wide-eyed, she threw it shut again, yelling at me from the other side while, judging by the sounds, she was remodeling the house.
John quirked a brow.
“Give her five minutes.”
I heard her rush down the hall, dishes clanking, the vacuum starting up.
“Maybe ten.”
When Mom finally reopened the door, John and I were still standing in the exact same spot. But now, I was staring at Mom, who wore pink lipstick. She’d brushed her hair and had on her nicest Sunday dress—buttercup yellow. My heart almost couldn’t take it.
“Nora, really, you should’ve warned me,” she said, pulling a lock of hair behind her ear as she smiled up at John. “What a surprise.”
“Mom, this is John.” I waved at him.
“So tall,” was the only thing she said. I had to stifle a snort.
But John, smooth as butter, took my mom’s hand and kissed the back of it. “Nice to meet you, Eva. I see where Nora gets her beauty from.”
Mom gave me a big smirk as I gently pushed her inside. I looked back over my shoulder at John, mouthing, Really?
He shrugged. “First impressions are the ones that last.”
I eyed him warily, not wanting to point out that this was completely unnecessary.
“I was just about to make dinner,” Mom said, taking the bag from John. “I’m afraid I only have some leftover quiche. If Nora would’ve told me you were coming, I would’ve made a roast.”
“I don’t want to impose,” John said, leaning against the counter and smiling over the island at me.
“Papperlapap,” Mom said, playfully waving him off. “I can’t even remember the last time Nora brought a boyfriend home.”
What a blatant lie. Mom probably kept a logbook of all my relationships.
As they stood together in the kitchen, laughing like they were old friends, it reminded me of when I brought Otis home. It felt comfortable and easy—with the addition of a fluttering heart. That...was new.
It was one thing to spend the night tangled up in sheets. It was an entirely different thing seeing him in my childhood home. This was personal. Intimate in a different way.
Without being asked, John helped Mom open a bottle of wine.
I sat in my usual chair, Mom retrieving her good wine glasses for us. I felt John brush past me and settle into the narrow seating nook beside me—instead of opposite me. From his perspective, it was probably the normal thing to do, but—
I tensed and placed my hand on his arm as he sat.
“What?” he asked, maybe mistaking the gesture for pretend girlfriend stuff.
He intertwined our fingers. The feeling of his large hands wrapping around mine—a gesture that to the outside world might look like familiarity—was still a startling experience for me.
My skin tingled under his touch, and I forgot what I was about to say.
But it was too late. Mom turned towards us, spotting John like a wolf in the sheep’s den. Her frail shoulders tensed. Her knuckles turned white as the wine glasses trembled in her hand.
“Is everything okay?” John asked, attention shifting between me and my mom. His smile had turned cautious.
Mom’s eyes flicked to our intertwined hands, then it was as if I had switched a channel on her TV. She nodded slowly, like she’d woken from a daydream, and looked between us. The lines around her mouth softened.
“Of course.” She set down the wine glasses—one for me, one for herself, and one for John, sitting in Dad's chair.
Something like hope bloomed inside me.
“Ah, eine Sekunde, why don’t I get the nice cutlery?” Mom said, despite my immediate protest.
As she left the room, John leaned over to me. I was still holding his hand.
“That’s Dad’s seat. The one you’re sitting in,” I whispered. He went to get up immediately, but I stopped him. “No, don’t. It’s fine. She...seems okay. Oddly enough.” I nodded towards the picture of me and Dad on the shelf above the dining nook. “We just don’t talk about him. Ever.”
John glanced at the picture of Dad and me, a photo we had taken by the sea.
I was about nine, standing on the Baltic coast of Germany.
White dunes and chalk cliffs in the background.
Dad was holding a rock he wanted to take home for his garden.
I remember Mom telling him not to be silly, that we didn’t have a garden, just a balcony.
This was a few years before we moved from Berlin to the States.
He never got around to building the pond and decorating it with his rocks.
“You look like him,” John said, smiling.
I frowned at the picture. “I know. It makes Mom sad.” I fiddled with my wine glass.
He nodded at the photograph. “You have the same coloring, and the way you smile...” He lifted a finger to my cheek. “There’s a small crease here that forms when you’re happy.”
The trail of his finger felt more intimate than it should have.
“And here,” he gently lifted his finger to the bridge of my nose, trailing it down, sending sparks down my spine.
“Your nose crinkles like a cat when you truly laugh.” He flicked it, and I yelped, slapping him playfully.
He’d managed to break the odd tension that filled the room every time the conversation even hinted at Dad.
Mom appeared with a handful of real silver forks. She’d put on a German radio station that was currently playing Helene Fischer.
“So, John, how was Italy?” Mom asked as we dug into the quiche.
I nearly choked on mine.
“Pardon?” John asked around a mouthful.
My hand slipped under the table and onto his leg, squeezing.
He gave a sort of grunt, which could’ve also been mistaken for a throat clearing. “Uhm, great, very…Italian.”
I snorted bubbles into my wine glass.
His eyes found mine, and he gave me an indignant look. I still couldn’t quite believe he was really here and that this felt both extremely exciting and utterly comfortable.
“You travel a lot?” Mom asked, draping her napkin in her lap.
“Occasionally. This is an excellent wine, Eva.”
My mom blushed. She cut her food into bite-sized pieces with a knife and fork. She nodded to herself. “I used to travel quite a bit. Before Nora was born.”
The redirection of conversation surprised me. Mom never talked about the...before. I sometimes forgot she had a life before Dad.
“You used to live in Germany, right?” John asked.
Mom seemed to brighten with each second, proud that I’d mentioned our heritage to him.
“That’s correct. My parents are from the south, near the Austrian border, but I grew up in the city.” I could’ve sworn her eyes sparkled.
“Do you miss it?” John shifted, placing an arm over the back of my seat.
Mom nodded, tracing the base of her glass with her finger. “Sometimes.”
I wanted to press further, wanted to see her eyes sparkle again.
But Mom beat me to it with a bombshell. “Do you want kids, John?”
I snorted red wine up my nose. “Mom.”
She held up her hands. “I’m just asking, Nora. You aren’t getting any younger.”
But John just laughed.
Instead, he took my hand—one I had placed on my stomach without realizing—and wound his fingers around mine, just like he had at the panel.
“No, I’m afraid not. It’s not something that ever appealed to me.”
Mom didn’t look shocked or disappointed. “I can understand that. Sometimes, I wish I’d waited, had done more. I always loved to travel. That was before the wall came down in East Germany, of course.”
I felt an immense wave of relief at her words. Relief because there was a glimmer of the past there—of a woman with dreams and fond memories. It was as if a curtain had lifted, just the tiniest bit, giving me a glimpse of the Mom I had almost forgotten existed beneath all the grief.
I smiled and clinked my glass against hers.
“So, how did you two meet? I don’t think Nora told me.”
I bit my lip before replying, “At a comic con.”
At the same time, John said, “At her university.”
My head snapped to him.
“I gave a guest lecture about...five years ago? Here in Middleton. Your daughter handed in a brilliant short story. From the moment she entered the study hall, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.”
My mouth went dry. “Brilliant short story? I thought you loathed it.”
He turned to me, his head tilted, a wistful expression crossing his face. “I never said that.”
Was he saying this because Mom was sitting there, or had I completely misremembered our first encounter?
“Come on. I can still see the way you scrunched up your face, like it was yesterday. You know, when you realized what I had written about.”
John paused, thinking it over for a moment. “That wasn’t because it was fan fiction. You were talking about how much you loved Lew Elliot, and I just…”
“And how is that bad?”
He shrugged, taking a sip of his wine. “He isn’t...I don’t think he deserves the pedestal people put him on.”
I frowned, but I couldn’t ask what he meant by that because Mom kept staring at us. Instead, I shook my head. “I can’t believe you remembered that.”
His fingers circled my shoulder. “I told you I remembered you.” Then he seemed to remember Mom was watching. “Even if it hadn’t been for her brilliance...your daughter left quite the impression on me.”
I couldn’t remember how to breathe. I didn’t know if what he was saying was because this was the kind of thing a mom would want to hear. Our eyes locked, as if we were both trying to read the other’s thoughts.
Mom’s tired eyes glinted with something like pride. “I always thought she’d do something within the arts.” She glanced toward the shelf with the sketch I had made. “She’s so talented.”
“She is,” John agreed, his nearly black eyes still resting on my face.
I cleared the lump in my throat. “It’s just a hobby, Mom. And we have the shop, don’t we?” I finished my wine in one gulp.
She nodded to herself. “We do. That we do.” She stifled a yawn.
I elbowed John. “It’s getting late.”
Mom made John promise to come back soon. Then she turned to me. “You seem very happy.” She brushed my cheek. “Keep him close.”
I ignored the painful twist in my gut. “I will.”