Will stood on the porch first, grinning the way he used to grin on Christmas morning when he was eight and already convinced Santa had finally brought him the thing he’d begged for. He was taller than me now, broader in the shoulders, with the same soft mouth his father had and the same earnest eyes that made me forgive him too quickly when he messed up as a teenager.
“Mom,” he said, like the word was a hug.
Then he stepped aside and said, “This is Claire.”
Claire came in right behind him.
She was… I mean, she was sexy. Not in a cheap way. In a clean, confident way. Dark hair tucked under a scarf, a smile that made her look like she already belonged in my doorway. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, and when she took my hand, her fingers were warm and firm.
“Mrs. Parker,” she said.
“Maureen,” I corrected automatically, because my son was bringing his future wife into my home and I didn’t want any of us to feel like strangers.
We did the normal things. Coats came off. Compliments got exchanged. Will made a dumb joke about me trying to poison him with lemon pie and Claire laughed the way a person laughs when they’re genuinely amused, not when they’re being polite.
I hugged them both—Will first, then Claire—and I felt that soft relief that comes from realizing your kid has found someone who doesn’t drain the room.
“Smells amazing,” Claire said, inhaling.
“It better,” I told her. “I’ve been cooking since noon.”
Will leaned in and whispered, “She doesn’t play around, babe.”
Claire smiled like she liked that.
I took their coats and turned back toward the kitchen, because the oven timer was about to go off and I refused to be the mother who served dry chicken on the night her son brought home his fiancée.
I remember thinking, as I checked the temperature, that everything felt… right. Like the universe was giving me a small kindness for all the years of doing it alone after Will’s father died. Like maybe it was my turn to have a moment that didn’t hurt.
Then I heard the soft sound of fabric moving.
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