Page 115 of The Wild Card

Mom brightens, but it’s forced. I can tell. “Oh. Well. That’s… that’s good, honey. You should get back out there.”

“Yeah.”

“Is he nice?”

“Sadie says he is.”

“Good. That’s good.” She nods, but she’s stirring her tea again, eyes distant. “What about Crew?”

“What about him?”

“Is he… is he seeing anyone new?”

I almost laugh. “No, Mom. He’s not exactly the dating type.”

“Then what’s he doing? Is he okay?”

The question catches me off guard. She’s not asking to be nosy—she’s asking because she genuinely cares. Because Crew sat at her dinner table, complimented her pot roast, and let my father grill him about his service record, and somehow in the span of one evening, Linda Marshall decided he was hers to worry about.

“He bought a cabin,” I say. “In Oklahoma. Broken Bow. Some fixer-upper he’s been working on.”

Mom frowns. “A cabin?”

“It’s basically falling apart from what I can tell. He goes out there on weekends. Works on it.”

“By himself?”

“His friend Foster goes sometimes, I think.”

She’s quiet, processing this. I can see her putting pieces together—the same pieces I’ve been trying not to look at too closely.

“That boy is running,” she finally says.

“What?”

“Buying a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Spending all his time fixing something broken.” She gives me a look. “That’s not moving on, Emmie. That’s hiding.”

“It’s not my problem anymore.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Mom.”

She holds up her hands. “I’m just saying. A man doesn’t run like that unless he’s running from something that matters.” She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “Go on your date. Have a nice time with the sous chef. But don’t close the door all the way on Crew. Not yet.”

“There’s no door left to close. He closed it.”

“Doors can be reopened.”

“Not this one.”

She looks at me with something unbearably tender in her expression. “We’ll see, sweetheart. We’ll see.”

I finish my tea and let her send me home with enough food to feed a small army, the way she always does. At the door, she hugs me tighter than usual.

“I love you,” she says. “And I’m sorry it hurts.”

“Thanks, Mom.”