"He's a lot for a planet," Claire said. "We're managing."
Her mother hummed. "Priya says you've been happier."
Claire mouthed Priya's name at the ceiling like a curse. "Priya has a big mouth and a good heart."
"Is there a person?"
Claire watched Nash finally look away from the cheese for half a second and marked it with praise like a slot machine paying out. "There's a possibility with rules. He's a veterinarian. He won't date a client. We're... waiting for logistics to stop being ethics."
Silence. Then: "That sounds mature." Her mother said mature the way some people said interesting—approval with a question mark hiding under it. "Just don't wait so long the feeling becomes a museum piece."
"I'll try to keep it living."
After the call, Claire sat on the floor and let Nash have the cheese because training, like dignity, required intermittent mercy. She texted Priya: You told my mother I seemed happier.
Priya: I told her you laughed at breakfast. That's data. I'm not your PR firm.
Claire: You kind of are.
Priya: Then bill me in oat milk.
That same week Isaiah caught himself almost asking Gwen to adjust a shift so Sunday dinner wouldn't collide with sleep, then stopped. He went to dinner tired and present. His mother set an extra plate out of habit and asked, lightly, whether he was seeing anyone, and Isaiah said, "I'm seeing whether patience is a personality I can live with."
His mother squinted. "That's not an answer."
Amina, traitor with excellent judgment of her own, said, "It's the only answer that isn't gossip."
After dinner Isaiah helped with dishes. Soap up to his wrists. The radio on low. His mother bumped him with her hip. "You get that careful look when you like someone and you're trying not to turn them into a reason to quit your life."
Isaiah rinsed a plate. "I like my life. I also like sleep. And I like a woman who brought a puppy in for cereal and let me tease her without collapsing. None of those facts get to bully the others yet."
"Yet," his mother repeated, pleased against her will. "Yet is a door."
"Yet is a door," Isaiah agreed, and stacked the clean plates with the care of a man who understood that evenings like this were also a kind of medicine.
On Wednesday night Claire took Nash to an extra practice session Delia offered for the chaos cohort. The church basement was bright and slightly damp. A poodle mix named Mango peed in celebration of existing. Nash attempted to recruit Mango into a crime. Claire practiced breathing the way Delia taught—count the inhale, name the dog, return.