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Jasper peers down at me. “Her mother used to babysit us when we were kids. How is she?” she asks Annie.
Sadness flashes in her eyes and her smile turns into a frown. “She passed away from breast cancer.”
Jasper strokes her back. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. It was only a matter of time.” She shakes her head. “Come, our menu has changed since you’ve last been here.”
He stops and looks around, and I finally glance up too, seeing pictures of people hanging on the wooden walls. Some of the chairs and tables are worn. “This place is a time capsule.” He looks at a table in the middle.
Annie stops and notices. “Do you want to sit in the exact same spot you and your mother used to sit at?”
“That would be great,” I answer.
We follow her, and Jasper sits across from me as he takes in the place he hasn’t been inside since he was a young child.
“Order me what your mother likes.”
He glances at me in confusion.
“I want to know what she liked, and we can connect with her that way.”
“She used to order the steak, medium rare, with gravy.”
My eyebrows climb up my forehead. “You mean the gravy you put on mashed potatoes?”
Annie nods. “It sounds strange, I know, but it’s really good.”
“I would like to get that and the garlic mashed potatoes, along with a small bowl of spaghetti,” Jasper adds.
“I’ll have the same,” I say.
Annie takes our orders and leaves us.
I exhale through my nose and play with the end of the tablecloth. “What was your mother like?”
His pupils are etched with bewilderment.
“What?”
“No one has ever cared to ask me about her.”
“Well. I care. Spill the beans.”
He waits several beats before responding. “She was sweet, nice. Her favorite color was purple, and she was a free spirit. She was into knitting and sewing. Instead of buying my clothes from the store, she used to make them for me. When she walked into the room, her whole mood could shift the energy of the space she occupied.”
I notice his eyes light up like Christmas lights as he tells me about her. This is the part of Jasper I love to see, not the distant and cold one.
He leans in and strokes my cheeks again, this time staring into my eyes, and butterflies take flight in my stomach.My pulse beats loudly in my ears.
Annie brings us our meals and we spend hours talking until the restaurant closes.
“Your mother had good taste in food. I never knew gravy would taste better on steak than steak sauce.”
“She did.”
He tells me more about the different places his mother would take him, and how every first Friday of the month she would keep him out of school and they would spend the day together. Jasper opening up to me melts my heart, and I don’t want this night to end.
We step outside, waiting for Chance to pull up to the curb. Jasper glances down at me and smiles. “Thank you, Poppy.”
