Tabs: Fine with me. As long as you’re not embarrassed to be reamed out for screwing your boss in front of an ex-coworker.

I pursed my lips and selected the straight mouthed emoji and hit send.

Mer: oof. Again.

For the first time since I’d started my new job, the day dragged. My mind was all over the place. The man I was in love with was in my city. He wanted to be with me and I was dragging my feet. At lunchtime, I only had thirty-five minutes between meetings so I made my way to Washington Square with a smoothie, found a bench, and called my mother. It was a tiny park, one city block, if that. And not too many people knew of its existence, or at least if they did they never walked through the gate.

“Mom.” The relief at hearing her voice as she answered made my throat tighten. Sometimes you just needed your mom. I didn’t realize how much I’d needed her to answer.

“Darling. This is a nice surprise. To what do I owe the honor?”

“Do I really call you that infrequently?” I cleared my throat and smiled, relief loosening my whole body.

She laughed. “No, but you never call me during the work day. How’s it going over there?”

“It’s great. You knew me better than I knew myself, getting me the contact there. It’s perfect for me. I love the people. I love the preservation projects. I do miss being creatively challenged. But I’ll find a way to get back to that somehow.”

“I’m thrilled. But that’s not why you called me, is it?”

I blew out a breath. “No. Mom … how did you know Dad was the one?”

There was silence. “Mom?”

“Yes, darling. Sorry. You just took me by surprise. I don’t know specifically. None of it made any sense. He was ‘old Charleston.’ I was an immigrant outsider. You know Charleston. So progressive in so many ways, so closed and backwards in others, especially letting newcomers in. But our love was … well, it was otherworldly. On paper, everyone’s eyebrows were raised. But for us it felt bigger than anything. But what clinched it was when he said he would move and leave his friends and his family and the city where he grew up and his job. Everything. Just for a chance to be with me because I had an internship that would take me to London for six months with a chance to begin a career there.”

“And you didn’t go? You gave up your career for him?”

“Oh, honey. It was a different time. And no. I had the same career. Just … different.”

“But not the internationally renowned one you could have had—”