Monty lives in a funny patchwork house that looks like two ranch homes got into a collision and never got unstuck. An American flag hangs over the door.

The house is dark inside. But his mom, May, comes to the door as soon as I knock, still wearing her hairnet.

“Abigail,” she says, and gives me a huge hug. She smells like cinnamon airspray. I’ve always thought May was like a favorite quilt, colorful and comforting, soft to touch. The kind of mother who makes you feel, right away, like you’re at home. My mother was exactly like that.

“It’s good to see your face.” She holds my cheeks briefly between her hands. “I came around the other day to visit your daddy but he said you had your own place…?”

I nod. “Yeah, I rented a place behind the hair salon,” I say. Feeling suddenly judged, I add, “I just didn’t want to put my dad out. And I’ve gotten used to my privacy now, living in Chicago.”

“Seems lonely to me,” she replies, and I’m not sure whether she means it as a criticism. But a second later, she smiles.

“Come in, come in.” She steers me into a cramped seating area wobbly with teetering sports trophies and framed family photographs: she must have tripled her collection since I was last here years and years ago. “Sit down. Make yourself at home. Can I get you anything? Water? Soda? I got some of my special tea!”

“Sure, tea is great,” I say, as she bumps off into the kitchen. I sit down next to a shrine to Monty’s incremental growth from grinning, gap-toothed child to enormous muscle man.

She returns a moment later with a tall glass of tea clinking with ice. “Monty told me he saw you last night at the game.” She puts a coaster on the table and takes a seat across from me, sighing as she eases off her feet. “You know half the kids showed up today still smelling like beer. Alcohol-free zone, my you-know-what. Last week of school, too. Some of them don’t even bother bringing books to class anymore.”

“You didn’t go?”

She shakes her head. “Football and more football. Seems like that’s the only thing anyone can agree on.”

“Is he at home?” I ask. But before she can respond, I get my answer: from deeper in the house, the crash of something heavy to the ground.

“Gimme a second,” she says, stiffly, and pushes up from the sofa. She disappears and I hear a muffled dialogue, the rapid back-and-forth of teenage stubbornness. She returns looking not angry, just exhausted.

“Hun, he’s not up for talking,” she says in a low tone. “I had to take him out of school early today. He turned over his desk, got into a shouting match with the principal.” For a second, she looks like she might lose it. “I’m just at my wit’s end with him. But what do they expect, dropping that kind of news at assembly?”