She squints at me. “You win the lottery?”
I snort, but it comes out rough. “Just… trust me.”
She does.
That’s the thing about her. She always has.
The restaurant is the kind of place that still uses cloth napkins and calls yousirwithout irony. The only five-star spot in town, tucked behind a line of maple trees like it’s embarrassed to exist here. We’re seated by the window. Candles. Low voices. A pianist in the corner playing something soft and familiar.
She looks beautiful. Not glamorous—herself. Hair pinned back, lipstick she only wears for weddings and funerals. She studies the menu like it might contain a trick question.
“You don’t come here often,” she says.
“I know.”
We order. Wine for her. Water for me.
I don’t even make it to the appetizers.
It just… spills.
The last ten years. Why I never married. Why I kept choosing motion over roots. How Boston feels like home in a way this place never quite did, even though I love it here. How my friends—God, my friends—are the kind of people you’d pull out of a fire without thinking. How my job doesn’t light me up, but the people in it do. How that counts for something.
I tell her about the guitar.
How I miss the weight of it. The way the strings bite your fingers just enough to remind you you’re alive. The sound of a pick snapping against steel. The way music used to be a languageI spoke fluently before I learned spreadsheets and meetings and how to smile without meaning it.
Then I tell her about her.
Not everything.
I don’t say the wordsscratchesorbruisesorlocked doors. I don’t describe the nights I slept half-awake, braced for impact. But I don’t lie either.
“I loved hard,” I say, staring into my water like it might answer back. “Fast. Like touching wildfire. It felt incredible, Ma. Like… I was invincible.”
She listens. Doesn’t interrupt.
“But fire,” I continue quietly, “burns. And sometimes it burns so good you don’t notice the damage until the smoke clears.”
Her hand finds mine across the table. Warm. Steady.
“She was troubled,” I say. “I think she tried. But whatever was broken… I couldn’t fix it. And the worst part is—sometimes she made me someone I didn’t recognize.”
My mother studies my face for a long moment.
Then she says, softly, “Don’t be like me, Ethan.”
The words land heavier than anything else tonight.
“I stayed,” she continues. “In this house. In the past. Afraid to change, afraid to move on. I don’t want that for you. Growing old alone with nothing but memories on the walls—son, that’s no way to live.”
My throat tightens.
“I’m sorry,” I say. It comes out raw. “I should’ve done more. Sent more money. Gotten you out of here.”
She squeezes my hand, firm. “You listen to me. I wouldn’t have gone. I don’t want you spending your life trying to rescue me.”
She smiles, small but sure. “My race is almost run, son. You? You’re barely a quarter mile down the track.”
