I shake my head. Yes, I want to go back to Boston—but there is no way I’m leaving my mom in the lurch. “Of course, Mami. Of course I’ll help.”

The doctor said five weeks to heal the foot, and almost a week has already passed. I can start the job-hunting process just as well here as in Boston. I won’t have to look for an apartment, because Louisa is letting me sublet a room in hers.

I bet in another four weeks, I’ll have stopped crying at unpredictable intervals, which will make me a much stronger candidate in job interviews.

My mom points a finger at me.

“And if you hear anyone at the Wilder party say ‘self-care,’ ‘spa,’ ‘self-indulgence,’ ‘girls’ night’ or anything remotely in that category, point me in their direction. I need to double the number of parties I’m doing now to reach the goal I set for myself.”

“Will do,” I tell her.

The housewarming party at Gabe Wilder’s is my mom’s latest, and most blatant, attempt at cheering me up.

“Mamita,” she said this morning, when she informed me that we were going, broken foot and all. My mom was born and raised in the U.S., and doesn’t use Spanish much except when she’s talking to her older relatives, but it shows up occasionally, especially in her favorite term of endearment. “Five Wilder brothers. You can’t be in a bad mood when you’re surrounded by those boys.”

“Mami,” I said sternly. “This isn’t some get-back-on-the-horse thing, is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said innocently. “I wouldn’t try to fix you up with a Wilder. Your brother would have my head on a platter. Besides. I know you. You wouldn’t move back to Rush Creek if we paid you a million dollars. You couldn’t wait to get out of here.”

There’s a note of sadness in her voice, but she’s been amazing overall about the fact that I live on the other side of the country and can visit only a couple of times a year. Cuban families tend to stick close together, but since she and my dad moved far from family, she wasn’t surprised that I did the same. And she’s right about the fact that I’ve never thought about coming back.

It wasn’t that I hated Rush Creek so much. It was fine. But I wanted to live in a city. And I have. Four years in Seattle, at the University of Washington, and then grad school in Boston, where I’ve stayed. At this point, I can’t imagine coming back here for good. No: My plan is to regroup, dry my eyes, and go back to Boston with a job on the hook.

And that’s still my plan—I’m just adding an item to it: