“Hey, Annie.”
My throat tightened before I could stop it.
Not Savannah.
Not Ms. Brooks.
Not the biggest tour of the year.
Annie.
“Hey, Mama.”
“You eat?”
“I’m eating now.”
“Something green?”
“I had green beans.”
“How many?”
“That feels invasive.”
“Three?”
“Possibly.”
“Annie.”
“I had a roll.”
“That’s not green.”
“It had emotional vegetables.”
She sighed the way mothers sighed when their adult children were famous enough to own houses but still could not be trusted to eat dinner.
“How was the show?”
“Good.”
“Only good?”
“Very good.”
“That’s better.”
I looked at the untouched rose in the middle of the table.
“Twenty-two thousand people.”
“My goodness.”
“They sang the whole last chorus.”
“I bet that was something.”
