I looked down. Mashed potatoes had landed on my shoe.
“Well,” I said. “I suppose dinner wanted to introduce itself first.”
Lila laughed too quickly. Julian didn’t. He just stared at me with those dark, careful eyes.
Leo’s eyes.
***
I was fifty-eight, and I had lived with the kind of loss that never really healed. You learn to cook around it, work around it, and raise a child around it.
Leo disappeared the night of our prom.
No goodbye. No note. Not even a phone call.
He just stared at me.
For years, I believed he had left me.
Then my daughter brought home a man wearing his face.
“Mom,” Lila whispered, touching my elbow. “This is Julian.”
Julian stepped forward. “Ma’am, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Emily,” I said. “Call me Emily. Ma’am makes me feel too old.”
Lila relaxed. “See? She’s normal.”
“I never promised normal, honey,” I said, wiping my shoe with a damp cloth. “I promised chicken.”
I believed he had left me.
***
I had made roast chicken because Lila once said it made a house smell like someone had their life together.
I had polished wine glasses we probably wouldn’t use, burned the first batch of rolls, and lined up the forks until Lila caught me.
“Mom, you’re fidgeting,” she said.
I sighed. “Fine. I’m nervous.”
Her smile softened. “I really love him.”
She had never said that before.
I tucked a curl behind her ear. “Then I will try to love him too, my darling, unless he chews with his mouth open.”
“I have limits.”
“I really love him.
***
Now, Julian sat across from me, cutting chicken with his left hand.
Leo had been left-handed.
“So, Julian,” I said. “Where did you grow up?”
“Mostly Michigan,” he said. “A few towns, really.”
“Military family?”
“No, nothing like that. My dad moved around before I was born.”
Lila glanced at me. “Mom, don’t start.”
“I’m not starting. I’m asking.”
“Where did you grow up?
