“It just came together this past weekend.”
“But we do Thanksgiving together, we always do.” Mom looks at Isla and Luca. “Did the two of you know about this?”
“I literally just found out,” Luca says, pointing at the screen with whatever he’s eating. He looks hurt. “Same time as you, Mom.”
“I knew about it,” Isla says. “And it seems sudden, but they’ve loved each other all this time. I honestly didn’t know how to feel about Tully until I saw the way he looked at Lola. He looked at her like she was his sun and moon and stars.”
I press my fingers to my lips, trying to contain my smile, and Isla smiles back at me.
“I’m excited for you,” she says.
“Thank you.” I blow her a kiss. “He wants to meet all of you. He knows you’re not super hip on the hockey thing, but he said to tell you he has good manners.” I laugh.
My mother stares at me with pinched lips. “Why would you tell him we’re not”—she holds up her fingers in quotes—“‘hip on the hockey thing’?”
“Uh, because you didn’t want to meet him when we dated before?”
“That should’ve never left this family.” She sniffs.
“You’re right, Mom. But he wasn’t offended by it. I’ve done a lot worse, and he’s forgiven me.”
My mother redirects at me like a heat-seeking missile. “You haven’t spoken to this boy in years.”
“I’m aware.”
“And now you’re going to his house for Thanksgiving.”
“His family’s house, yes.”
“Just like that.”
“Not just like that,” I say. “It’s been—there’s been a process.”
“What process? You didn’t tell me about any process. Did anyone know about a process?” She looks around at the other squares.
Luca shakes his head. My father says nothing.
“Isla knew,” my mother concludes, with the tone of someone adding evidence to a case she’s been building for years. “Isla always knows.”
“Isla is very trustworthy,” Isla agrees pleasantly.
“Lola.” My mother takes a breath, and when she speaks again, her voice has shifted into the register she uses when she’s decided to be reasonable, which is somehow more alarming than when she’s just reacting. “I remember when you and this boy broke up. You weredevastated. Every time I turned around, you were moving?—”
“Because my rent kept getting jacked up,” I say. “Not my fault.”
“You were not yourself for a very long time. I’m your mother, and I had to see you go through that, and now you’re telling me you’re just”—she flings her arm—“going to Minnesota.”
“I—”
“I just want to understand what’s different now.”
What’s different now? So much. I think about Wade’s call this morning. I think about years of waiting for the floor to drop out and the dawning possibility that maybe it doesn’t have to.
“Everything is different now,” I say. “Everything but our feelings for each other.”
She looks at me for a long moment.
“How serious did you say this hockey player is?” she asks. “Financially, I mean.”
