"I can't remember what happened that night. I'm not talking slippery details or fuzzy-edged visions; I mean a complete and utter blackout. Like I wasn't even there. Except... I know I was."
Since the death of her boyfriend six months ago, Morgan Cai...
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Once the food was served, the awkwardness eased, and for the first time since setting foot back in my house I let myself relax. We were all saving ourselves for the inevitable overindulgence that would come with Thanksgiving dinner the next day, but Mom had still laid on a mighty feast: five-bean chilli, endless servings of rice, tortilla chips with guac and salsa. I didn't know what had inspired the Mexican theme, but it was a hit all the same.
Josh hadn't ever seemed daunted by the prospect of meeting my family, but his confidence still left me shell-shocked. He'd only known them a couple of hours, and he was already acting more comfortable with them than I did with people I'd known for months. And they loved him for it. I didn't need to facilitate the conversation, because Josh was right there in the middle of it. With his charm on full beam, cracking jokes and asking the right questions and laughing in all the right places.
Really, it couldn't have gone any better.
When he jumped in the shower later that evening, Mom took the opportunity to stop by my room. She acted like she was dropping off spare towels, but there was already a stack in my closet.
"So..." she said, in a dramatic whisper, setting the towels down on my bed. "Josh is nice, isn't he?"
I gave her a pointed look. "Mom."
"What?" she asked, feigning innocence. "I'm just saying."
"But you want to say a lot more. I can tell."
"I'm just really happy he's joining us for Thanksgiving," she said, smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles in the towels. "And... I'm also really happy that you've found someone that seems to make you really happy."
I frowned. "How do you know?"
"I can just tell. Call it mother's intuition, or something like that."
The sincerity in her voice caught me off guard. She was looking at me so closely, with so much love in her eyes, that it suddenly felt like years since I'd last been in this bedroom. Nothing in the room had changed; it was exactly as I'd left it three months ago, except for being slightly emptier where I'd packed up the essentials and taken them to college. But the polka dot bedspread and fluffy pink cushions were the same, along with the small collection of stuffed animals at the foot of the bed. For the first time, I felt like an adult who'd outgrown the room—but this window of a moment here with Mom made the leap seem less terrifying.
I didn't get to say anything else, because the sound of the bathroom door opening jolted us both. Mom jumped off the bed like she'd received an electric shock and moved toward the door.
In the doorway, she paused to give me a smile. "Goodnight."
I heard the brief greeting as she and Josh crossed paths in the hallway, and then he appeared in her place. In a black T-shirt and plaid pajama bottoms, his hair glistening with droplets of water, the sight of him made my heart skip a beat.
