“Your mom seems nice,” Ethan eventually commented as he cut a perfectly square piece of steak and dipped it in golden, silky sauce.

“She’s okay,” I said, motioning the waiter to come over for the third time to ask for more fries. “She liked you.”

“How do you know?”

“She went for her hair. Mom flipping her hair is one of her biggest tells.”

“Yeah? I wonder what it is I did to earn a hair flip.”

Sure. Like those dimples have no track record.

“Who knows.” I shrugged. “Maybe you two just clicked.”

“She seemed surprised to see me though,” he said, mid-bite.

“I think everyone’s still adjusting to me going out again, to be honest.” I let the waiter fill my plate with fries.

“How do you mean?”

I didn’t particularly want to approach the topic. It didn’t seem appropriate. But I figured it wasn’t something I could ignore forever, nor was it fair of me to withhold something like that from him. The timing might be off, but then again, I didn’t really think it was possible to ever talk about something like that and have it be at just the right moment. Certain things have no easy fit in the world, be it in terms of time, chance, or opportunity. It didn’t mean they lacked in importance.

“Well,” I said, taking a break from hoovering fries. “When Liam died, nobody really knew what to do.”

He gave me a look that exuded empathy.

“Mom took time off from work and glued herself to her side of the bed; Dad, in turn, glued himself to his desk at his office downtown; Noah had zero clue how to handle it and did what he could—he acted out.” I tried to pretend there wasn’t a Super 8 rolling in the back of my mind as I twisted my words into sentences for his benefit. “My grandparents took it pretty hard, too—especially Granddad. Liam had been his shadow, something that hadn’t changed as we got older.”

“Yeah?” He smiled kindly.

“Absolutely. They’d even had monthly chess outings at the park. Liam and Granddad would spend a whole weekend having a sort of tournament with Granddad’s friends—they always won.”

“That’s very cool,” Ethan said, folding his hands over his lap and slouching a bit.

“It was.” I did my best to keep my Super 8 from sidetracking. “They called every day. So did most of the family, as well as Mom’s and Dad’s friends. Not to mention our friends. I told you how we had the same group of friends.”

Ethan nodded.

“Well, Jonas is my best friend since the womb, basically; Marcy was Liam’s. Then there was Emma too.”

But he doesn’t need to know about that just then.

“Everybody froze,” I continued. “So…I had to sort of do everything.”

“What do you mean?”