Sounds more like he needed a breather and it was the perfect excuse to get away.
I pour coffee, lean against the counter, and watch her work. She lets the silence stretch just long enough to make me think I might get away with noserious talk.
Then she kills that hope.
“So,” she says, turning off the burner. “How is my son?”
“Which one?” I ask, stalling.
She gives me a look. “Both,” she says. “But I asked you, not him. So I want your answer.”
I blow out a breath and stare into my mug. “He’s… better,” I say. “Caleb. Not cured. Not… fixed. But… better. He’s doing the work. Using his tools. Honest with Dr. Kaur. Honest with me. Mostly.”
She nods, plates tortillas, and slides them into a warmer. “And you?” she asks, quieter now. “How is my baby?”
I shrug, because that’s my oldest trick. “I’m okay,” I say.
“Wrong,” she says immediately.
“Define wrong.”
“You say ‘okay’ when you mean ‘I don’t know how to answer that without worrying you,’” she says matter-of-factly. “So. Try again.”
I grimace. “You’ve been talking to my therapist,” I mutter.
“Maybe he just understands Mexican mothers,” she says, lips twitching.
I hesitate, watching the steam curl off my coffee. “I’m… tired,” I admit finally. “Different tired than before. Less… panicked. More… heavy, sometimes. But I’m… working on it. With Luis.”
She smiles a little at his name. “You like him?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I do. He’s… calm. Doesn’t make me feel stupid for worrying. Doesn’t tell me to just ‘relax.’ He… gets that I can’t watch Caleb almost drown and then go back to the beach like nothing.”
Her eyes shine, but she doesn’t tear up. “Good,” she says. “I like him already.”
I take a breath. “He asked me who I am if I’m not the one handling everything,” I say. “I didn’t have an answer.”
She turns fully to face me then, dish towel in her hands. “You know what I constantly thought while you were growing up?” she asks.
I blink. “That I was going to break your plates?”
“That you were already carrying too much,” she says simply. “This little boy with big eyes who thought he had to be the man of the house, the protector, the one who never cried. I thought, ‘if I’m not careful, he’s going to disappear under that.”
My throat tightens. “I didn’t,” I say. “I’m still here.”
“Because you are stubborn,” she says. “And because you love hard. And now…” She steps closer and reaches up to cup my face in both hands like she did last night. “Now you have to learn howto let yourself be loved back. Not just in bed. In the boring parts. In the hard parts. You are not just the handler,mijo. You’re my son. You are Caleb’s partner. You’re a man with your own heart and your own pain.”
Her thumbs brush my cheekbones. “You deserve care that is not only what you give away,” she says softly.
She lets go before it can spill over. Turns back to the stove like she didn’t just pry my chest open with three sentences.
“And with Ashton,” she adds, flipping an egg into a pan, “you don’t need my permission to set limits. He is your stepfather, yes. He is also a man who is learning. Slowly.” She makes a face. “Very slowly. But if you are tired of carrying his guilt about Caleb and his opinions about you, you can put some of that down. It’s not all yours.”
I stare at the pattern in the countertop until it blurs.
Don’t fucking cry.
“I know,” I say quietly. “Luis said something like that too. That I am one line in Caleb’s safety net. Not the only one.”
