His mom froze, and a tide of red swept over her face as she stared first at Stella and then the bowl. “Let me make new noodles.”
Before his mom could touch the bowl, Michael grabbed it. “I’ll do it. Sit, Mẹ.” His expression was strained as he removed the poisoned food, and Stella had the horrible feeling that she’d said The Wrong Thing, but she didn’t know how else she could have navigated the situation.
His mom sat down and eyed Michael’s sisters as they continued their argument in a loose square by the refrigerator. Sighing, she picked up her peeler and resumed where she’d left off with her last mango.
Stella kept her eyes on her own work, growing more and more nervous with every passing moment. She was painfully aware of the lack of conversation between them, and her instincts urged her to fill the silence—if silence was even the right word. His mom wasn’t speaking, but his sisters were, and the TV had been blasting this whole time. When the piano started playing again, her nerves stretched to the breaking point. That flat A note rang one, two-three, four times. Had anything ever been so irritating?
“You really should get the piano tuned,” she said. “Where is your husband again?”
When his mom continued peeling her mango without answering, Stella assumed she hadn’t heard the question.
So she asked again. “Where is he?”
“He’s gone,” his mom said in a final tone.
“Does that mean . . . he’s passed away?” Should she offer condolences? She wasn’t sure what to say now.
His mom sighed, keeping her eyes on her mango. “I don’t know.”
The answer tripped Stella up, and she frowned as she asked, “Are you divorced, then?”
“I can’t divorce him if I can’t find him.”
Stella stared at Michael’s mom in complete bafflement. “What do you mean, you can’t find him? Was he in an accident or—”
A large hand gripped her shoulder and squeezed with firm pressure. Michael. “The noodles are almost done. Do you eat peanuts?”
She blinked at the interruption. “Sure, I’m not allergic.” When he nodded and went to the kitchen island, she refocused on his mom. “How long has he been gone? Have you filed a missing-person re—”
“Stella.” Michael’s voice split through the air, a startling reprimand.
His sisters stopped arguing, and all eyes locked on her. Her heart pounded louder than the TV and the piano. What had she done?
“We don’t talk about my dad,” he said.
That didn’t make any sense. “But what if he’s hurt or—”
“You can’t hurt someone when they don’t have a heart,” his mom interrupted. “He left us all to be with another woman. I want to divorce him, but I don’t know where to send the papers. He changed his phone number.” His mom pushed her chair back and stood. “Mẹ’s tired. You kids eat, ah? Maybe go buy something for Michael’s girlfriend if she doesn’t like what we have.”
His mom left, and the piano music ended abruptly. His grandma turned off the opera, leaving the room quiet but for the crackling of the TV’s static discharge. The sudden quietness was a relief, but it felt ominous somehow. Her blood rushed, her head throbbed, and her breaths came in short gasps like she’d been running. Or maybe she was preparing to run.
Janie hurried into the kitchen. “What just happened? Why is Mom crying?”
No one answered, but seven sets of eyes accused her. It was worse than all the noise from before, far, far worse.
She’d made Michael’s mom cry.
Stella’s face flamed with embarrassment and guilt, and she jumped to her feet. “I’m so sorry. I need to go.”
Ducking her head, she gathered her purse and fled.
* * *
• • •
Michael stared at the doorway Stella had rushed through, feeling like he’d watched a car accident in slow motion. A mix of unholy emotion coursed through his veins. Anger, horror, shame, disbelief, shock. What the fuck had just happened? What did he do now? His instincts urged him to chase after her.
“You better go check on Mom,” Janie said.
That was right. His practice girlfriend had just put his mom in tears. What a great son he was. He went to look for her without a word. With heavy feet and a heavier chest, he climbed the stairs, walked down the carpeted hall, and paused outside his mom’s bedroom. The door was ajar, and he peered around the edge, finding his mom sitting on her bed. He didn’t need to see her face to know she was crying. It was written in her slumped posture and the way her head hung.
The sight destroyed him. No one got to hurt his mom. Not his dad and not his past girlfriends. Not even Stella. “Mẹ?”
She didn’t acknowledge him as he entered the room and padded to her bedside.
“I’m sorry about all the things she said.” He tried to keep his voice low, but it came out unnaturally loud. “The piano, the food, Dad . . .”
He didn’t know how Stella had managed it, but in just a few minutes, she’d found every sensitive spot his family possessed—their tight financial situation, his mom’s lack of education, and his fucked-up dad—and poked right at them. Accidentally. That was clear as day.
Holy shit, she was bad with people. He’d had no idea how bad until tonight. When it was just the two of them, it wasn’t like this.
His mom grabbed his hand. “Do you think your dad is okay?”
“I’m sure he’s fine.” His lips twisted as he imagined his old man lounging on a yacht in the Caribbean next to his latest wife.
“Can you email him for Mẹ?”
“No.” He was never talking to his dad again.
His mom took a ragged breath and covered her face. “Your Stella was right. He could be hurt. He’s so evil no one would care to help him, certainly not his new woman. She’s only with him as long as the money lasts.”
He fisted his hands as a familiar rage threaded through his muscles. “That amount of money should last a long time.”
“Not the way he spends. He thinks he’s a big shot. Nothing was ever good enough for him, remember?”
Not this again.
Michael clenched his jaw as his mom launched into another retelling of a story he’d heard a thousand times. He sat down next to her and listened with half an ear so he could make the appropriate sounds when she paused.
Words like uses women and bad person and liar stuck out, and he couldn’t help noticing how well they applied to himself. Look at all the lies he told. Look at what he did to pay the bills. Look at him taking money from Stella for doing what any other guy would do for—
Cold horror soaked into him. This was why it had felt so wrong to accept Stella’s proposal. It was wrong. He was taking advantage of her. What kind of man accepted money from a naïve woman to teach her things she could learn for free?
He’d finally taken the last steps and become his dad. That couldn’t be right. That wasn’t him. He was better.
Their arrangement had to end right now. Where was she? Fuck, was she waiting for him outside?
He shot to his feet before his mom’s story was half finished. “I have to go, Mẹ. I’m sorry about . . . tonight, about everything.”
“There’s no need for sorry. If you love her, we’ll learn to love her, too.”
At the mere mention of that word, sweat broke out over his brow. “I don’t.” That made his actions worse, didn’t it?
His mom waved his protest away. “Bring her back another day. Mẹ won’t microwave the plastic when she’s here.”
“You shouldn’t microwave it any time.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She said the words in such a manner that he knew she would continue doing things her way regardless of what she’d been told, and Michael swore to himself he’d throw all her plastic away and replace it with something safe. Right after he spoke to Stella.
“Good night, Mẹ.”
“Drive careful.”
He escaped the house in record time, but he came up short as he stepped outside.
She was gone.
He gripped one of the porch’s wooden support pillars and dragged in deep breaths as his heart rate slowed and his mind cleared. Cool air, the buzzing of bugs, and the distant whir of a car’s motor.