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It takes her approximately three seconds before she gasps and takes the laptop out of my hands entirely. “When I discovered that you were B.R. Slate, I did research.”

Something about the way she says research makes me immediately nervous. “Define research.”

“I needed to understand what you'd been doing, of course.”

“So you listened to the podcast?”

“Obviously I listened to the podcast. I also read the articles about it, the interviews, the profiles, the reviews—although I stopped reading those because some people are needlessly cruel and several others don't understand basic narrative structure.”

My left eye twitches.

“I wanted to be informed, you know. Before I just brought all this up with you.” She clicks out of the video and opens a browser. “You had an entire career I knew nothing about, Bear. I wasn't going to remain ignorant simply because you had decided to become a secret investigative journalist.”

Faun climbs higher against my chest as my mother types something into the search bar. She clicks through two results, backs out of one, changes the search terms, then opens an article old enough that the website looks like it was designed by someone with a personal vendetta against mobile formatting. I have no idea what she's looking for until she scrolls past a wall of text and stops on a photograph.

“There.” She points at it. “I recognize that man, Bear.”

She turns the laptop toward me.

The headline above the photo reads Local Roots: Catching Up with Cebastian Price, which is exactly the kind of aggressively local human-interest piece I can imagine Cebastian pretending not to know exists. The photograph beneath it is older, clearly pulled from a family collection: Cebastian on vacation with his parents and two other people I assume are relatives, everyone squinting into bright sunlight in front of a lake.

My attention catches on the man standing beside Cebastian.

A bit older here. Grayer than on the video. Wearing sunglasses and a polo shirt instead of a uniform.

But unmistakable.

I look back at the frozen video still behind the browser window, then at the photograph again. “That's the chief.”

My mother nods.

“What the fuck?”

“I knew I'd seen him.” She sounds vindicated now, scrolling rapidly through the article. “I read this when I was trying to determine who Cebastian was.” She keeps scrolling. “I looked into everyone involved. You'd hidden an entire portion of your life from me for years. I had catching up to do.”

Other mothers discover their son's secret career and maybe listen to a few episodes. Mine conducts background investigations on the executive producer's extended family.

I can’t say I’m mad about it now, though.

She makes a small sound and stops scrolling.

“What?”

“Here.” She turns the laptop back toward me and taps a paragraph near the end of the article. It's a quote from Cebastian's mother, the sort of sentimental hometown shit journalists tack onto profiles when they've run out of questions about professional accomplishments.

“We always knew Ian would end up somewhere bigger than Stillwater,” his mother says. “Even as a boy, he was determined to make something of himself. His father and I couldn't be prouder of everything he's built.”

I read it twice.

Then a third time.

“Ian?”

My mother shrugs. “Apparently.”

I stare at the name for another second, trying to understand why something about it bothers me.

Then I scroll back to the family photograph.