“I miss your father every day. That’s not going to change. But I’m also—” she paused, searching for the word that wasn’t pathetic or predatory, “—lonely. And the only person I don’t feel lonely with, lately, is you.”
The house had been too quiet for eighteen months. Not the peaceful kind of quiet, but the heavy, held-breath kind, like a phone that had stopped ringing mid-conversation. stepmom makes the first move
He froze. A forkful of potatoes halfway to his mouth. “Okay.” “I miss your father every day
“One night,” he repeated, testing the words. And the only person I don’t feel lonely
Lena felt it most acutely on Tuesday evenings. That was when Mark, her stepson, came over for dinner. He’d sit across from her at the farmhouse table, methodically cutting his chicken into smaller and smaller pieces, answering her questions with the polite efficiency of a customer service chatbot.
She decided, for the first time in her careful, grieving life, to stop ignoring things.
“Let me finish.” She leaned forward, just a little. Just enough to cross an invisible line. “I’m not your mother. I’m not trying to be. And I’m tired of pretending I don’t notice that you look at me differently than you used to. Or that I’ve started looking back.”