It is? The last time she saw Ezra was the night of the argument. She did everything in her power to convince me I shouldn’t look for him and seemed satisfied when my defiant efforts to find him proved fruitless.

“Good seeing you, too,” Ezra says.

“How are your parents doing?” Mama asks, her tone polite and only mildly interested in the couple who used to be like family to us.

“My father passed away a few years ago.” Sadness flits through Ezra’s dark blue eyes, making them that near-purple color they’d become when he felt something deeply. Everything else about him may have changed, but at least that is the same. “Mom’s doing well. She remarried last year.”

“I’m so sorry about your father.” Mama squeezes Ezra’s hand. “Please give Ruth my best.”

“I sure will.” He turns to his son. “This is Noah, Mrs. Allen, the only grandchild and subsequently, spoiled rotten. Noah, this is Mrs. Allen, Kimba’s mom.”

“Hi.” He glances up through long lashes at my mother. “My bubbe lives in New York.”

“Ezra, you used to call your grandmother Bubbe, too. Ruth was so devastated when she passed.” Compassion gathers in Mama’s eyes. “Poor Ruth, losing so much.”

“Mrs. Allen.” A slim woman wearing glasses and a semi-anxious expression steps into our circle. “The board wants a few photos with you. You, too, Kimba.”

“Thank you, Brenda,” she says. “We better go. It was so good seeing you again, Ezra and Mona. Lovely meeting you, Noah.”

“What about lunch tomorrow?” Mona says quickly, taking my arm. “We need to hang, girl. Catch up. It’ll be fun.”

Ezra doesn’t speak, but the muscle in his jaw draws tight beneath his skin. He’s looking down at the ground in that deliberate way he used to have. A casual posture that did little to hide his alertness. At least, not from me. Do I still know him?

“Kimba!” Mama says from a few feet away, already lining up for pictures. Something akin to anxiety marks her expression when her glance flicks between Ezra and me. “Come on.”

I hear it again. Our parents’ raised voices. The angry demands that separated me from my best friend. The desolation of watching from my porch as he left, knowing somehow, despite what he said, that it was for good.

“Say noon?” Mona asks. “Give me your number and I’ll text you the address.”

Ezra does glance at me then, and the look in his eyes wills me to say yes, even as Mama’s expression urges me to pull away.

Not again.

“Noon?” I grab Mona’s phone, punching in my number. “I can’t wait.”

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

Ezra

“More water, sir?”