My daughter called me three times that morning to remind me about dinner.

“Six o’clock, Mom,” Claire said on the first call. “Not six-fifteen. Six.”

“I know what six o’clock is, sweetheart. I’ve been telling time for seventy-one years.”

“I just want everything to be perfect.”

On the second call, she wanted to know what I was wearing.

“My blue dress,” I said. “The one with the little white buttons.”

“Oh, good. Greg loves blue.”

“Greg has never seen me in my life.”

“I know. But he loves blue. He says it’s a trustworthy color.”

On the third call, she didn’t want anything at all. She just wanted to hear herself say it one more time.

“Mom, I really think he’s the one. I know I said that about Mark, and I know how that turned out. But this is different. Greg is different. He’s kind. He opens doors. He remembers things. Last week he remembered that I don’t like cilantro. Mark was married to me for eleven years and never remembered that.”

“I’m glad, honey.”

“You’re going to love him. Everybody loves him. Daniel met him at the gym and he said Greg was a ‘solid guy.’ You know Daniel doesn’t say that about anybody.”

Ezoic
“Daniel said that about his mechanic.”

“Mom.”

“I’m teasing. I can’t wait to meet him.”

And that was the truth. I couldn’t wait. My daughter had been alone for four years since the divorce. Four years of working too much and sleeping too little and pretending she was fine every Sunday when she brought Sophie over for lunch. I had watched my girl fold herself up small, the way you fold a letter you don’t want anyone to read. And then, eight months ago, she met a man at a friend’s birthday party, and she started to unfold.

She laughed more. She bought new clothes. She stopped apologizing for things that weren’t her fault. She sounded, on the phone, like the Claire I remembered from before Mark. Like the girl who used to sing in the car with the windows down.

Ezoic

I wanted to meet the man who gave her that back.

I hung up the phone and looked at the clock on my kitchen wall. It was eleven in the morning. I had seven hours. I spent most of them doing what old women do before an important dinner. I ironed the blue dress twice. I polished my good shoes. I baked a lemon pound cake, the one my mother used to make, and wrapped it in a clean dish towel. I practiced being charming in front of the bathroom mirror, which made me feel ridiculous.