“How’s the assignment?” Dad asked. “Anything we’d see on the news yet?”
“No breaking alerts,” I said. “It’s more of a slow-burn piece. Long-form. I’m still in the ‘staring at strings on the wall’ phase.”
He grunted approvingly. “Those are the good ones.”
Mom hummed. “As long as no one is shooting at you this time.”
“Mom.”
“I mean it, Amelia. I’m allowed to ask. You promise me whenever you go anywhere near a conflict, you’ll tell me. Charleston isn’t a conflict zone, but you have a way of finding trouble.”
On another day, I would’ve deflected. Teased her about worrying. Reminded her that walking across certain parts of Toronto after dark was statistically riskier than where I usually went.
Today, I just said, “I know. I’m being careful.”
There was a tiny pause, like she was weighing whether to push.
She didn’t.
“What are you doing right now?” she asked instead. “Besides calling your parents out of the blue.”
“I’m in my hotel,” I said. “Hiding from humanity for a bit. I had an intense couple of days. I needed to hear normal.”
“Well,” Dad said, “normal here is this: I finally fixed the leaky faucet. The neighbor’s dog is still convinced our yard is his yard. Your mother tried a new recipe that nearly set off the smoke alarm.”
“It did not,” Mom said.
“And the Leafs lost in overtime again,” Dad finished. “Some things never change.”
A laugh slipped out of me, unforced. “Comforting.”
There was a beat of companionable quiet.
I could keep it there. Let them talk about gardens and the book club Mom hated but refused to quit. Let this be a normal check-in call with a daughter who happened to be on the other side of the continent.
Or, I could do the thing I’d been avoiding.
I could say his name.
“So,” I said, my heart suddenly tapping against my ribs like it wanted out. “There’s someone I want to tell you about.”
Both of my parents went absolutely silent. Not alarmed—just bracing. They had perfected the art of parental Stillness in the Face of Big News sometime around my undergraduate years.
Dad broke first. “A …someonesomeone?”
His tone had the hopeful caution of a man who once lived through my college boyfriend, the poet with the shaved head and the nihilist phase.
“A someone,” I confirmed.
Mom exhaled like she’d been holding her breath since the word Charleston. “Well. Tell us everything.”
Everything. God.
I picked at a loose thread on the duvet, suddenly aware I was in leggings and a ratty Columbia tee while telling my parents about the most complicated man I’d ever loved.
“His name is Levi,” I said quietly. “Levi Dane.”
“Nice name,” Dad said immediately, because he judged all men partly on whether their names sounded trustworthy. He still didn’t trust any man named Chad.
