“Why is he mad about it?”
“Because he wanted the closet.”
“That’s stupid.”
“That’s a man with too much money and not enough engineering, kid.”
“What’s engineering?”
“Engineering is the difference between a wine fridge and your house falling down.”
Bear takes a bite of Camdend and considers this.
I’m eating my salad and trying to remember the last time the three of us sat at this table at the same time and ate food. I cannot.
“How’s school, Lucy?” My mom asks after a long, quiet moment.
I think about school, and I think about all the bad days I had in high school, and how she never asked me then. I ignore the resentful feelings and smile. “It’s as good as your chicken parm. I didn’t know you could cook.” I smoothly change the subject.
She smiles. “Learned from the best.” She grabs Tyr’s hand and witnessing her affection makes this entire situation hurt just a little more than it already does.
“How’s the cog psych thing going?”
“It’s going.” I force a smile, but I think my lips just press together and form a line. “I’ll be fine.”
“What’s your favorite class this semester?”
I blink at her, not liking all these sudden questions. She’s asking because she has no fucking clue about my life and needs to play catch up. “Um,” I take a moment to think about my honest answer instead of the anger swimming in my chest, “I guess Real Analysis.”
“Is that the math one?” she asks.
She would have no idea if it was math or not. I take a bite. “Yeah.”
“What’s Real Analysis?” Tyr asks.
My mom asks, “What are you doing in it?”
With my mouth full, I say, “Measure theory right now.”
“What’s measure theory?”
I look at her, the frustration building in my chest. She never asks me about these things, and I know she’s only pretending to care because she has an audience. I look at Tyr, trying to decide if I’m going to revert to the child who was always left alone andnot heard, or if I’m going to remain the level-headed Lucy I’ve become in college.
I swallow. “It’s the part of math where you ask what counts as a length.” I nod.
She repeats, “What counts as a length? Huh, interesting.”
She has no clue what I’m saying, so I explain, “Yeah. There are sets of points on a line that don’t have a length, and there are sets of points that have a length but no points, sort of, and you have to figure out the rules for which is which.”
“That sounds hard.”
Tyr raises his eyebrows like he’s impressed.
“It’s a little hard.”
My mom winks. “You always liked the hard ones.”
“Yeah.” I look down and take another bite. I think I handled that well. I look over at my mom, watching her closely. I’m not sure if I should keep my guard up or let it down. Honestly, I don’t know how to act at all.
