He took another step toward me, this time with more intention, and ran his hands down my arms. My breath was shorter now, and I suddenly felt very, very sober. I leaned toward him, my lips almost grazing his, the kiss that I had craved all day so close to happening.

As the bathroom door flew open, he jumped away as though I had bitten him. “So, what’s the verdict?” Madison trilled.

I laughed nervously, trying to pretend that nothing had happened, nothing was happening. “Oh, um…”

“It smells like asparagus,” Parker jumped in confidently.

Trina appeared at the door. “Pee sniffer! There’s a new one for Robby Jr. to try.”

We all laughed, the tension breaking. As Parker caught my eye, making my heart race, I briefly considered that maybe everything that had happened between us was colliding in this moment, conspiring to bring us back where we belonged.

Parker CONNECTED

I WAS MORE THAN A little bit surprised when I got home after midnight after a very eventful dinner to see that my mom was sitting on the back porch. I didn’t want to talk; I wanted to sit alone with my thoughts about Amelia and me and analyze every inch of it. But I slid open the back door, and she said, “Sit down, honey.”

I took a seat beside her on the sofa, noticing how loudly the bullfrogs were croaking. The winds of the morning had calmed to a gentle breeze and the marsh grass blew, the moon highlighting the water that ran through it.

I noticed an envelope in Mom’s hand as I sat down beside her, trying to appear sober. She took my hand in hers, and my heart started racing. Not in the way it had when I was alone in that bathroom with Amelia earlier. But in the way it did when I was afraid. Something was wrong with my mother. In the seconds before her next sentence, I decided that she had terminal breast cancer, that she had been fighting it for months, maybe even years, without letting me know. Because that’s the kind of mother she was. I had to call Dad and grill him about once a week because my mother was so damn secretive.

The splash of a fish that I couldn’t see jumping out of the water broke me out of my thoughts, and I finally got my nerve up to say, “What’s the matter, Mom?”

She smiled at me, and I had the most vivid memory of being four years old, of falling in the driveway and skinning my knee. Mom had run out from the kitchen and knelt down to pull me into her lap and kiss me, and she had given me this same smile, one meant to bolster but that also held undeniable pity.

She put her hand up to her white blouse, her plain gold wedding band catching the light. “Darling, I have tossed and turned over whether I should say this to you. You know I believe in letting my boys run their own business.” She paused and looked at me thoughtfully. “But, well, I believe that you love Amelia. And Elizabeth believes that she loves Harris. And while I’m not saying that she doesn’t, I have to wonder if she knew how you felt about her, she might change her mind about him.”