“That would be lovely,” Bianca said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “But I don’t want to be too much trouble. I know you have better things to do than be burdened taking care of me.”

Angi’s cheeks hurt with the effort to remain smiling. “You’re not a burden.”

Before her mom could heap more passive-aggressive guilt onto the already overflowing pile, Angi herded her son out the door.

She tried to bring up the situation at school as they drove, but Drew kept steering the conversation back to his ever-growing Christmas list. His small hands gripped the straps of his camo-patterned backpack so tightly his knuckles turned white.

It broke her heart to see him hurting and not be able to help. Memories of her own struggles fitting in assailed her, and not for the first time she contemplated whether she could add homeschooling to her list of to-dos.

“I’m fine, Mom,” he said as he opened the door, flashing a gap-toothed grin.

When had she become Mom instead of Mommy?

The hits kept on coming.

One of the few benefits to being pulled in a thousand different directions each day was that she didn’t have much time to ruminate over all the ways she wasn’t measuring up. She made it through the meeting with Aldo, refusing to allow him to mansplain supply costs to her and getting him to agree to a ten percent reduction in their monthly bill.

She greeted the regulars, along with a few new faces, who came in for lunch. The town of Magnolia had seen a recent resurgence in popularity after years of decline, and Il Rigatone should be reaping the benefits of the area’s renewed popularity.

Unfortunately, visitors didn’t seem to appreciate the old-school charm of the place, which hadn’t been updated in decades. Angi knew online reviews for the restaurant were a mixed bag, some praising the classic dishes they served and others bemoaning the lack of innovation with the menu items.

Her mother’s appointment was routine, so by the time she got back to the restaurant in the late afternoon, Angi felt somewhat calmer. Right now, checking in on her son topped the priority list, so she went looking for his dark head.

“Where’s Andrew?” she asked Dominic Marcelli, Il Rigatone’s longtime head cook. The elementary school was only a few blocks from downtown, so Drew walked to the restaurant after dismissal and did his homework or played video games in the back office until she could drive him home.

Angi had spent her childhood much the same way, although her son did a lot less pilfering of food from the storeroom and refrigerators than Angi had as a kid.

“Haven’t seen him,” Dom told her, not glancing up from his online poker game.

“His backpack is in the office,” she said, trying not to let panic take hold. She knew he’d arrived safely from school, although normally Angi was waiting with a snack and a hug. Andrew knew not to go exploring around town without checking in with her first. Didn’t he?