She picked up after only two rings, probably freaked out thinking something bad had happened.

“Everything’s fine. Just calling to say hello.”

The hissing I heard on the line told me my mother was not buying my bald-faced lie. “So you just called your Manman because you miss me?” The snark in her voice made a smile break out on my face, even as I closed my eyes, unsure of how to broach the subject.

“I’ve been seeing someone.”

“Oh?” My mother had a gift for delivering an entire monologue in one syllable.

The unsaid, you must be real pressed if you’re calling me for advice... came through loud and clear.

“We’re too different.” My mother made a sound between exhaustion and sympathy at my outburst. But she knew me well enough not interrupt. The next part I knew would get a reaction. “He’s rich. His dad’s kind of racist,” I said, ruthlessly leaving out everything that made Easton the man I was falling in love with.

Because that was it, that’s what had me hesitating, trying to figure out how I could hold on to what I had with Easton for a bit longer, when with anyone else I would’ve walked away long ago. I could hide it from him, and even from my mother, but the weight of trying to hide it from myself was becoming impossibly heavy to carry.

“Uh huh,” my mother said knowingly. “So, now that I know all the things that are wrong with him, why don’t you tell me the reasons why you’re calling me to talk you out of letting him go.”

I groaned at her ability to see right through my bullshit. “Manman, he’s a prosecutor. It’s going to put us at odds, it already has.”

I heard tongue clicking and a tired exhale. “Is he a good man?”

“The best,” I said without hesitation.

“Patrice, son, why do you look for ways to cheat yourself? Don’t let my mistakes cost you your happiness.”

I sighed, not sure what to say, but I’d called my mother for a reason. I needed to hear this.

“I want to be happy Manman, but I won’t compromise what I believe in.”

There was more teeth sucking before she spoke again. “Pitit, for once let yourself fully have something before you start finding ways to push it away. I am sure you have good reasons to hesitate, son, there is just so much that can go wrong when you open yourself up to someone like that. But you actually called me today to talk about him.” She laughed, sounding truly astonished. “That’s never happened, and that means something. Does he make you happy?”