And then one of them—the crow general?—hopped down and delicately helped itself to a piece of granola. Soon the rest followed. Once they were done, they took flight, whooshing off into the blue sky and out of sight.
He stood looking out the window for a long time, and then he called his mother. The restaurant was closed Mondays, so he thought he might catch her.
“Jack!” she exclaimed when she picked up his FaceTime call. Something in her voice reminded him of the way Blair sounded when Esme called. He had never noticed it before. “Is everything OK?” Her tone had shifted there, from delight to concern, because he so rarely called. Because he was an asshole.
“Everything’s fine. I just thought I’d call and say hi.” He paused. He didn’t know how to ask what he wanted to ask, to say what he wanted to say. So he settled for “How’s life at Mulligan’s?”
“We’re back to pads and paper, which I appreciate.”
“You mean for taking orders? I didn’t realize you’d moved away from them.”
“About a month ago they decided to give us mini iPads. You canimagine how that went with all the old biddies we’ve got there, and I include myself in that.” She made a silly face.
He chuckled, because that was what he was supposed to do.
She saw through him. “Are you all right, sweetie?”
“I’m fine.” He paused. Well, shit. He had called her for a reason, and he wasn’t going to let himself off the hook. “I just wanted to say that, uh, you were a good mother. Youarea good mother.”
There was a long silence. He had made a mistake. She was either going to freak out and assume something was seriously wrong or brush off what he’d said and try to give him credit for her parenting.
She surprised him by saying, “Thank you, I appreciate that. Being your mother has been the great honor of my life.”
And then she surprised him again by saying, “And not because ofIn Time.”
He gasped. Audibly. Dear God. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t take offense.” She held up the hand that wasn’t holding her phone. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I didn’t take offense.” Quite the opposite. When was the last time someone had told him they appreciated him aside from that fucking book? Probably not since his last year of teaching when a girl called Vivian had written him a card telling him his class had inspired her to switch her intended major at college the next year from engineering to English. Even Blair, who right now was pretty much his biggest—and only—cheerleader, had the gig because she’d been a fan ofIn Time.
“Of course I loveIn Time,” his mother said. “I love that you wrote such a thing. I know it was hard.”
It was interesting to hear his mom say that writing was hard. His dad, the actual writer, had never said such a thing.
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
“You can ask,” she said with laughter in her tone. “Will I answer? Let’s find out.”
“Were you and Dad together, when I was a kid? I know you didn’t live together, but were youtogether?”
She did answer, but the laughter had gone from her voice. “We were for a few years after you were born. We thought we’d try out the whole being-a-family thing, even though we didn’t live together.”
“And he couldn’t do it,” Jack said.
“I wouldn’t say that necessarily,” his mom said after a pause.
“Mom. I appreciate your unrelenting commitment to not bad-mouthing him, but I’m an adult. I can take it.”
She sighed. “I’m not sure there’s much to tell. I fell in love with him. He fell into bed with me. It took me a while to fully sever those ties.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack said.
“I’m not. You know that thing I always say about how sometimes people are in your life for a reason or a season?”
He did know. His mother often leaned on clichés, and that was one of her favorites.
“You were the reason for your dad to be in my life,” she said. “The best reason. The greatest reason.
