“Don’t even think about it,” I told her.
She gave me a look that clearly communicated her opinion of this injustice, then settled at my feet with the resigned air of someone who knew she would win the day . . . eventually.
We ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Mrs. Chen spoke again.
“You know, I was married for forty-three years.”
This was uncharted territory.
Mrs. Chen rarely talked about her late husband beyond the occasional reference to Harold and his various quirks.
“Harold was a good man, but he was also stubborn as a mule and twice as ornery,” she continued, twirling noodles around her fork with the precision of someone who’d clearly mastered the technique. “Took us three years to admit we loved each other, and another two to actually get married. After four decades together and too many dinners without him, you know what I regret most?”
I shook my head.
“All that wasted time being scared. Love isn’t guaranteed, Jeremiah. Neither is time. When you find something good, you grab it and hold it and savor it and . . .”
She looked away, set her fork down, and wiped her cheek. It was a long moment before she turned to face me again.
The weight of her words settled between us, and I found myself thinking about Theo’s smile, about the way Debbie’s face lit up when she saw me, about how the three of us had somehow become something that felt like family without me quite realizing when it had actually happened.
“I should get going,” I said eventually, though I made no move to leave.
This had become part of our routine, too—me claiming I needed to leave while Mrs. Chen finished her dinner, both of us knowing I’d sit there for another twenty minutes listening to her stories about Harold or her theories about neighborhood drama.
“That Stevens woman is up to something,” Mrs. Chen said, right on cue. “I saw her sneaking around the Patels’ backyard yesterday with a measuring tape.”
“Maybe she’s planting a garden?”
“In October? Please. Mark my words, there’s going to be trouble.”
After helping her clean up and making sure she had everything she needed for the night, I crossed the street to Theo’s house where the porch light was always on and the living room windows glowed with warm yellow light.
Most nights, I found them in the kitchen—Theo cleaning up from dinner while Debbie sat at the table drawing elaborate pictures of dragons and unicorns engaged in various adventures. The domestic scene never failed to make something warm unfurl in my chest.
“Willie Wee!” Debbie would shriek the moment the front door creaked open, abandoning whatever she was doing to launch herself at my legs.
“Hey there, princess,” I’d say, scooping her up for a hug that she’d tolerate for exactly thirty seconds before demanding to be put down so she could show me her latest artistic masterpiece or explain the complex plotline of whatever book Theo had read to her the night before.
For his part, Theo would look up from whatever he was doing—usually dishes or the next day’s lunch prep—with that soft smile that made my knees wobbleevery single time.
“How’s our patient?” he would ask. The casual way he said “our” made my heart do things that should probably have required medical attention.
“Ornery as ever. She thinks Mrs. Stevens is plotting something involving the Patels’ backyard.”
“Mrs. Henderson is definitely plotting something,” Theo would add seriously. “I saw her at the hardware store buying zip ties last week. Zip ties, Jeremiah. No one needs that many zip ties for innocent purposes.”
Simple conversations had become the highlight of my day.
Not just the banter with Theo, though that was admittedly incredible, but the whole package—Debbie chattering about her day while she colored, Theo moving around the kitchen with quiet efficiency, the three of us settling into an easy rhythm that felt like something we’d been doing for years instead of weeks or months.
Some nights I’d stay for a movie, wedged between them on the couch while Debbie provided running commentary on whatever film she’d selected. Other nights, we’d play board games that inevitably devolved into chaos when Debbie decided the rules needed modification to better accommodate dragons.
“You can’t just add dragons to Monopoly,” Theo protested one evening after Debbie announced that Baltic Avenue was now a dragon sanctuary.
“Why not? Dragons need places to live, too,” she replied with the unassailable logic of a five-year-old, before placing a miniature plastic dragon where tiny houses or hotels belonged.
“She has a point,” I said, earning a grateful smile from Debbie and an exasperated look from Theo.
