I look from him to my mom, but she isn’t budging. Her hand is still on the doorknob, and a bird keeps chirping in the courtyard—two high squeaks back-to-back. Her eyes are narrowed, and she’s looking around and around the room, her vision prowling like a spooked cat. I’m not sure how to respond because I don’t understand her reaction. I sit listless on the sofa bed but slowly rise to my feet as she finally closes the door behind her.

“Whatever you two think you’re doing behind my back, it won’t last. I see right through you.” Her voice is pressed between her teeth like a hissing snake.

“Behind your back?” I mimic, totally lost.

Gary’s face sags. He’s heard this before. “Mary, come on. She’s a child. She’s your daughter for Christ’s sake. Be reasonable.”

I am nearly knocked to the ground with the force of the realization. She thinks we’re flirting or…worse?

“Never stopped you before,” she spits, striding past him to the kitchen, where she unloads her purse and keys onto the scarf-laden card table with jerky movements.

“That doesn’t even make sense,” he says. “Are you hearing yourself?”

She casts a glance at him over her shoulder. “I thought I told you to stop letting yourself in here?”

He sighs. “We said four o’clock. Remember? You weren’t here. I texted you. What was I supposed to do, wait outside in the heat? At my own building?”

I watch them both from my position near the sofa. I feel sorry for Gary. No matter how solid a man may be when he meets my mom, she brings enough dysfunction to the relationship for both of them. Not that Gary strikes me as solid in any way but financially. He’s good-hearted, I think. Soft. But broken nonetheless. I imagine that losing a child will do that to you.

“I don’t care what you do. This is my place. You can’t just come barging in anytime you like.”

“But it’s not,” I say, unable to hold my tongue any longer.