“You’re making something out of nothing.”

“It didn’t seem like nothing yesterday when you stormed into your room.”

“Enough!” She slams the lid of the waffle container on the counter. “Gary and I have a history. We’re working through it, but having you here has…dislodged some things. I’m sorry if I jumped to conclusions. You have to understand how it looked from my perspective.”

“How did it look? Like we were having a conversation in the living room with several feet of space between us?”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” She shoves the waffles into the fridge and slams the door. “It’s over.”

I pretend to be interested in a lineup of articles on my phone. I see a headline about an order of Catholic priests releasing a list of accused sex offenders working in their churches and schools in the eighties and nineties. There are over sixty names. How much longer is the list of victims? My eyes slide to my mom. I am reminded of all her weirdness about the cathedral. The Catholic high school I never even knew existed. I take a bite of banana and waffle goo and my stomach twists. “Tell me about when you were in high school.”

She freezes, looks at me. “Where is this coming from?”

I turn off my phone and shrug. “Curious. You never talk about it. I just wonder what it was like for you. You said you went to private school, but I didn’t know there was a private high school near Moony.”

“There isn’t anymore,” she says quietly. “They closed down after…”

Her eyes are cast down into the sink, but she’s not seeing the dishes spackled in waffle batter as she fills it with soapy water. She’s looking within to some scene I can’t be privy to. She drifts away from me the way a feather might on a summer wind.

“Mom!” The sink is full and the water is just reaching the edge, cresting over onto the counter, spilling down the cabinet in front.

“Oh, gosh. How clumsy.” She turns off the faucet and drops to her knees with a dish towel, sopping up the sudsy mess. “I must have been distracted.”

I watch her carefully. Her shoulders are rounded now, and her eyes are heavy. Her lips are drawn thin. I can see it in the lines around her mouth and hear it in her sigh. She’s sad. All the waffles-and-joy exuberance of the morning has shifted, like the sun behind a cloud.

“After?” I let the word linger between us, waiting.

“What?” She looks up, the wet dish towel dripping from her hand.

“You said there isn’t a private school near Moony anymore, not after…”