“Was there something else?” I ask.
“She’s asking if you’ll stay. For breakfast.”
My neck goes slack and my head falls as if it’s been severed from my body. Which may actually be a circumstance preferable to my own.
“Roooooo,” I whine, staring into the exposed ductwork overhead.
He stuffs his hands in his pockets. “I know, I’m sorry. I’ll tell ’em—”
“Fuck,” I whisper, mostly to myself, but Ro pauses to hearwhat’s coming next. If the situation was reversed, I know Ro would do this for me and more. “Fine,” I decide, finally. “It’s fine.Claire’sthe one who should get to be mad, anyway, right?”
I practically spit the words at him, but even through my glare, I’m trying to discern if an admission or denial crosses Ro’s face. All I find there is confusion.
“Wait, why will she—”
But I can’t listen to any more. “Just tell them I’ll be right out.”
—
Mr. Jackson turns from his place at the stove when he hears me shuffling out of the bedroom.
“Ayye!” he says, with a ladle in one hand and a huge smile across his face like the last ten minutes never happened. “There she is.”
He extends his fist to me and I meet it with my own, staring through our hands to avoid meeting his eyes. He turns back to his pot, but my relief evaporates when Mr. Jackson opens his mouth once more, hollering, “Claire, get in here!”
The fuck?
A woman who couldonlybe Ro’s mother emerges from a laundry room off the kitchen that I hadn’t noticed last night. She’s carrying a stack of cloth napkins while Ro trails dutifully behind her with other assorted linens.
I’m still looking expectantly behind Ro, for the woman in question, when his mom approaches me. “Morning, Kaia. I’m Mrs. Jackson, but with the way my husband’s been hollering, you might as well just start out calling me Claire too.”
“Oh!” I say, entirely too loudly. “Claire!” I enunciate it so dramatically, I turn her name’s single syllable into two. She’s kind enough to pretend not to notice any of it.
The furrow in Ro’s brow deepens even more, with what I’m sure is a very real concern that I may be losing my mind. He shrugs in question, but since I will not be explaining, I wave him off instead. Bringing my focus back to his mom.
“What are we doing?” she continues. “Handshakes, hugs?”
“Mom,” Ro complains.
I like her immediately for making him uncomfortable, while trying to spare me.
“What?” she says, standing beside me now. She turns so we’re both facing Ro, like she and I are on the same team. “I’m trying to respect Kaia’s space.”
If she only knew how hard I was working to get her son to disrespect my space just a few hours ago.
“I went with a fist bump,” Mr. Jackson says, still stirring his grits. “But I also didn’t ask.”
“Well, I’m just so glad you agreed to stay,” Mrs. Jackson says, like I had a choice.
Before today, I would have sworn Ro was his dad’s twin, but now I’m not so sure. His smile is Mr. Jackson, but the gleam in his eyes, his expressions, the way he carries himself? That’s all his mom.
And she wraps her arms around me as she says, “I’ve been dying to meet you.”
—
By the time we sit down to eat, the apartment smells like every family reunion I wish I’d had growing up. The morning’s awkwardness has lifted enough that I’m now able to make direct eye contact with Ro’s parents, but the smile in his mom’s eyes remains. She hasn’t forgotten.
Our brunch conversation is mostlyKaia and Ro Trivia,with his parents recounting everything they already know of our lastcouple months. It’s more than I would’ve expected, though they seem to be missing a few key details from our time in the city. I’m more than happy to fill in the blanks for them, though they aren’t nearly as surprised by Ro’s dramatics over the oysters as they are by the prospective sale of his live installation.
