We met at one of her favorite restaurants, the kind that whispered importance through dark wood and folded napkins. She wore navy, her color of authority, and ordered wine before I sat down. “So,” she said, tilting her head with surgical interest, “is this a real update, or are we just catching up?” I told her about Anna—her night shifts at the clinic, the way she laughed with her whole body, the steadiness that made rooms feel quieter. My mother approved of the profession, the parents, the pedigree. Then I said the part that mattered most. Anna was a single mom. Her son, Aaron, was seven. The pause that followed was almost elegant. She lifted her glass, took a measured sip, and placed it back down with care. “That’s a lot of responsibility,” she said, voice neutral. I spoke about Aaron’s curiosity, his love of drawing, the way he’d told me I was his favorite grown-up with an earnestness that rearranged something in my chest. My mother reframed it as convenience. Weeks later, I brought Anna and Aaron to meet her anyway. The babysitter had canceled; life had happened. Anna apologized. My mother nodded, offered a handshake that felt like an interview, and asked Aaron a single question before dismissing him with her eyes. She paid only for herself. In the car afterward, Anna didn’t rage. She simply named the truth. “She doesn’t want to know me.” I told her my mother didn’t know how. I wasn’t sure I believed it myself. When I later told my mother I had proposed, she delivered the ultimatum with calm precision: marry her and never ask for anything again. I waited for a crack in her certainty, for a mother to appear. None did. So I left the showroom of polished legacies and chose a life that felt real.
