Miguel didn’t answer right away. He just stood there with the envelope in his hand.

Then he said, “Go sit down. I’ll take care of it.”

I shook my head. “If the total goes over six hundred—”

“It won’t matter,” he said. “Tonight, your wife eats like a guest.”

I thanked him, and I meant it so hard my voice nearly broke.

When I got back to the car, Kathy looked at me with that careful, worried look she had perfected over the years.

“Was everything okay?”

I smiled. “Of course.”

She knew I was lying, but she let me have it.

That was another thing Kathy did. She let people keep their pride when she could.

We walked in together. I offered her my arm even though she hated needing it. She leaned on me anyway, just enough to tell me she trusted me.

Jason and Amber arrived ten minutes later.

Jason hugged me with one arm and glanced at his watch with the other. Amber didn’t hug anybody. She gave Kathy a quick kiss on the cheek, the kind people use when they want credit for being kind without actually being kind.

Then we sat.

At first, the dinner almost felt normal. Amber talked about a friend’s vacation in Cabo. Jason bragged about a work project like he had built the company himself. Kathy asked them how the week had been. She asked about their dog. She asked about their house. She asked the kind of questions mothers ask when they are trying to keep a family stitched together with patience and politeness.

Amber ordered lobster. Jason ordered steak. I ordered whatever Kathy wanted. She picked soup and salad and said that was enough.

“It’s Mother’s Day,” I reminded her.

She gave me a tiny smile. “I know. That’s why I didn’t want to make it expensive.”

That sentence hit me harder than I expected.

Make it expensive.

As if wanting a decent meal was some kind of damage.

As if Kathy had spent her whole life not only surviving but apologizing for it.

The waitress came and went. Water glasses were filled and refilled. Kathy moved carefully in her chair, trying to stay upright. A few times she pressed two fingers against her ankle under the table, the way she did when the pain got bad enough to make her eyes water.