“Ezra...”

“Mom, back off. I’m not kidding. I need some space. I’m a grown man.”

“Whatever. You still make the same pouty face you did when you were three.”

“I’m very charming. It clearly came to me very early on.”

She tried to stifle a smile but failed. And that made him smile, too.

“You get your modesty from your father’s side of the family. You can tell him I said so. Work it out. She loves you. It’s written all over her. Which is good because you love her, too.”

“She’s my girlfriend so yes, I care about her. Too early for love.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” His mother tipped her head to the side. “You can’t tell yourself when it’s acceptable to love and not love. You simply love or you don’t.”

She hopped up onto a stool and he groaned inwardly. Sharon was making herself comfortable, which meant a lecture was imminent.

“Your problem is that you have spent every moment since you got home from sober living proving you’re worthy of a second chance. So much time and energy that you can’t even see we’ve given you that second chance long, long ago and you proved us right to have done so. When are you going to accept that you’re worthy? You’re the only skeptic left. So what is it? Your entire life can’t continue to be one long prison sentence of guilt and shame. This isn’t purgatory and you long since served your sentence.”

“I’m going to my house. I’m going to eat something, take a shower and I’ll be sleeping by nine. Go see Mary. She was having contractions earlier.”

Sharon pursed her lips. “Look at you shoving your mother out the door and throwing your sister-in-law under the bus. Someone’s defensive. Those were practice contractions. Our Damien, he’s going to be a daddy. He’s grown so much. Love does that.”

He should have known his mother would be back to him.

“I was beginning to wonder if he’d ever settle down. My little charmer. But he has and he’s grown. He’s starting a family with a woman he took a chance on. Was vulnerable to. Maybe if you shared whatever it was with Tuesday? Sometimes once you say the scary stuff out loud it’s not that scary anymore. Are you worried that your racial differences are going to be an issue?”

He laughed because she wasn’t going to let go, like a bulldog with a Southern accent.

“No. I mean, it’s there. There’s no denying some people react negatively. Mostly people look twice because she’s beautiful and has all that gorgeous hair.” She always carried herself like a queen. “But that’s outside stuff. Between us, that’s not an issue. With our friends and family it’s not an issue.”

“I didn’t think so. Is it that she was married before?”

He kissed her cheek as he passed her to head out and back to the house. “I’ll see you tomorrow night at the gallery.”

She hopped down and followed him, Loopy trotting along.

He paused at his back door. “Thanks for not making Violet into Sunday dinner. I’ll plant you some new carnations next week when I’m back from Vancouver.”

His mother waltzed right in through the door he’d opened for himself. He groaned, just very quietly.

“Make me some tea, please. I’m coming down with a sore throat. I want to feel better before the baby comes.”

He put on a kettle for her and pulled out some tea and mugs. It was warm outside but his kitchen was shaded by the big pine trees in the yard so it was nice and cool inside.

“Do you feel like maybe she’s still pining for her dead husband?”

“And she’s back.”

“Well, that’s what he is. Dead. He’s not coming back to claim her.”

And even if he had been, Ezra wondered if he would have. From where Ezra stood, the man had done her wrong. Tuesday might have given him a second chance but Ezra didn’t have to be forgiving. Ezra didn’t have to have a very high opinion of anyone who’d cheat on Tuesday and he didn’t think much of Eric as a man.

He’d never say so to Tuesday, of course. Or even out loud to his mother.

He ached to shoo her off toward Vaughan and Kelly to be free of this interference but Vaughan would kick Ezra’s ass for it and given how delicate things were between his baby brother and his ex-wife, a visit from Sharon might just send the whole thing over a cliff in flames and he didn’t want that at all.

“You’re okay, right? Not struggling with sobriety?”

He put his face in his hands. “Mom. I’m fine. Have some tea. I’m going to shower. I’ve been up since four and this is the first time I’ve had a pause of longer than ten minutes all day long.”

“You go on ahead. I have to make some calls. I’ll finish the tea and make us some sandwiches if you’re not just going to go to Tuesday’s.”

“Dad would appreciate that more than I would.”

“Your father doesn’t need it. You do, though.”

“I’m fine! How many times do I have to tell you that before you leave me the hell alone?”

Though he’d yelled it loud enough to send the cats running from the room, his mother just looked at him.

“If you think this is going to drive me away you’re dumber than I thought.”

He turned and stalked from the room, slamming his bedroom door, which didn’t make him feel any better and probably made his mother laugh.