“Oh. I didn’t check my phone this morning!” Her mother waved a dismissive hand as if the technology everyone else considered essential was completely optional for her. Then she lamented, “No one ever calls me except for your brother and the doctors anyway, so what’s the point? That’s why you scared me half to death when you showed up here without any warning whatsoever.”

Victor found himself suppressing a smile. Dawn had been right about her mother’s facility with guilt trips. She’d slipped that one in with seemingly no effort.

“I shouldn’t have scared you,” Dawn replied. “I was calling your name before I tapped you on the shoulder. But you didn’t hear me. What’s going on with your implant?”

Her mother huffed. “Oh, that silly ear of mine!”

After a moment of confusion, Victor realized that “ear” must be how she referred to the cochlear implant she received shortly after returning to America.

“Earlier this week, I accidentally got in the shower without taking the external processor off, and it shorted out! Can you believe that?” Her mother spoke-signed to Dawn.

“What?” Dawn’s eyes widened with worry. “Mom, how are you going to get through surgery without being able to hear what everyone is say—”

“What is this?” Gyeong seized Dawn’s left hand, cutting her daughter off. “You got married and didn’t tell me?”

“We weren’t exactly talking,” Dawn started to say with an embarrassed grimace.

She might as well have not wasted her breath.

“You got married and you didn’t tell Byron to tell me,” her mother amended.

Before Dawn could answer, Gyeong’s accusing gaze dropped to Victor’s hand with the laser focus of an Asian mother who thought her daughter was entirely on the shelf. “You got married to a Korean boy without telling me?”

“He’s not Korean,” Dawn answered, rubbing at her temple with the hand her mother wasn’t holding in a death grip. “And we weren’t talking. Remember?”

“He’s Korean!” her mother insisted. “Look at his big boy build. Like one of those Korean YouTubers. How do you call them? Thirst traps!”

“He’s not Korean,” Dawn insisted. “Also, what are you watching on YouTube?”

“Hold on, Dawn’s Husband…” Gyeong glared at Victor, her formerly warm brown eyes now laced with suspicion.

Victor stilled, waiting for her to put two and two together and realize he was the same Chinese boy she hadn’t wanted her daughter to date fifteen years ago.

But then her mother asked him, “Have you had lunch yet? I made bulgogi last night and I’ve got plenty of leftovers.”

Gyeong bounced into the house without waiting for an answer. Leaving him and Dawn to follow.