When my arms are back to my sides, my mother is still looking at me.

Shit.

I don’t want to get into this tonight, and even if I did, now isn’t the time. That’s not why I’m visiting—that, and I’m not mentally prepared for that conversation. I need to be solid about what’s going on before I off-load that onto my parents. God knows I’m nowhere near close to being comfortable with it myself.

“You know I’m going to have to get a job at some point, and there’s nothing for me to do around here,” I say.

She scoffs. “Don’t bullshit me, Cole.”

Well, okay.

It’s not that I haven’t heard my mother use profanity, because I have. But I’ve never heard her just throw one out there in conversation with me until now.

I expect her to recant her vulgarity and backtrack. But the only thing she does is lift her brows in challenge.

“You do not have to get a job,” she says. “Your last contract alone was three years, fifty million dollars.”

Excellent point.

“And you save money like it’s nobody’s business.” She presses her lips together in a suppressed smile. “You’re driving your father’s truck instead of getting a rental.”

“Don’t throw that at me,” I say with a laugh. “What happened to, ‘Your dad’s truck needs to be driven, or the battery is going to go dead’?”

“What can I say? Sometimes I like to pretend like you still need me.”

She smiles, but it doesn’t quite cover the way her bottom lip trembles. I don’t dare hug her because that will definitely set off the waterworks.

My heart swells as I adjust to this new dynamic between us—the one where I’m the adult child of aging parents. I don’t know when that happened. I guess I was too busy before to notice how much older she seems and how many more wrinkles line her eyes.

She turns away, then grabs a piece of paper towel and dabs her face. She doesn’t let me see her cry.

I hold my breath and close my eyes as my mind drifts to a place that I try to avoid.

My life has changed so much in the last two years alone—in ways I never anticipated. I’m left with a ton of questions and few answers, and I wrestle with what the future will look like for me in so many ways.

But as I watch my mother toss the paper towel into the recycling bin, it hits me that my parents are in a similar spot. Their lives look different, too, just not in the same way.

I don’t know what to do about that.

“I guess you at least came home,” she says, facing me again.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She leans against the counter and wraps her arms around her middle. “I know something is wrong, Cole.”

And that’s why I love you, Mom. You always know.

“And I’m glad you came home,” she says, lowering her voice. “I’ve always hoped that we raised you to know that no matter what you go through in life, wherever we are—you have a place too.”