Chapter 24

Grant’s mom is the sweetest lady who looks extremely surprised to see me—not just because she has her eyebrows drawn on too high, but also because she caught me sneaking through her kitchen in a desperate attempt to avoid just this.

This being me sitting awkwardly at the kitchen table while Grant’s mother tries to make me every single breakfast food ever invented.

“Really, Mrs…” I trail off. I completely forgot what Grant’s last name is. Wonderful. “Please don’t go through the trouble. I normally don’t even eat breakfast. I usually just have a coffee on the go because I’m so excited to get to work.”

Grant’s mom lets out a high-pitched laugh.

“You.” She points her spatula at me. “Are just a riot.”

I’m really not.

Now, according to Dr. Debbie, it’s important to be your genuine self, but also showcase your best attributes when meeting new people, especially potential partners’ parents. I have a colour-coded binder of pleasant topics of conversation and polite ways to deflect any conversation that would reveal me to be a workaholic robot.

Except, we’re in a time loop, so I really don’t care what kind of impression I make.

“No, I’m really not a riot. I barely understand social niceties, let alone humour.”

Grant’s mom laughs again.

Okay…

“I’m being serious. I didn’t want to spend the night last night, but I was so tired from the whole building collapsing thing…again, that I stayed over. If I had known that I was going to have to meet Grant’s mom, there’s a good chance I would have jumped in front of traffic instead. No offense.”

Grant’s mom just starts to laugh again, a tickling wheeze of a laugh that makes her already-high eyebrows all but disappear in her hairline.

“You’re too much,” she says, wiping at her eyes.

Funny—usually when I get told that, it’s followed up by my dates asking if I’ll pay for the meal. This time, it’s followed by Grant’s mom putting down the largest tray of breakfast food I’ve ever seen.

“I didn’t know how you like your eggs—” she starts.

“So you decided to cook every egg in existence to eliminate the need to ever ask the question again?”

She chuckles and holds up a hand for me to stop. Fair enough. This time, my comment did border on a joke. Although, I do wonder if this buffet of breakfast foods will impact the price of local eggs.

“I hope you’re hungry.”

She sits down at the small kitchen table across from me. She rests her head on her hands, which barely peeks over the mound of food.

And she just watches me.

Tentatively, I reach out and put a waffle on my plate. She nods her head encouragingly at me. I slide a sunny side up egg onto my plate. Again, she nods encouragingly. I stab at some cantaloupe and move that onto my plate as well. She just continues to nod.

Part of me wonders just how much I can put on my plate until she stops celebrating each moment like I’m resuscitating a baby lamb with my bare hands.

“Do you do this for all the girls Grant brings home? With the price of groceries nowadays, that’s one expensive morning after.”

Grant’s mom laughs. Again. Seriously, is this house filled with nitrous oxide or something? It wasn’t a joke. The cost of living affects us all.

My mind flashes back to the girl outside my building who I gave my umbrella to. It really isn’t a joking matter. I think about her outside in the rain on a terrible night like the other night…

I frown. Something gnaws at the edge of my brain—a thought scratching at the door, requesting my attention.

“I hope he doesn’t mind me saying this, but you’re actually the first young lady he’s ever brought home.”

The polite thing to do would be to redirect this conversation. I could talk about the weather, fabric softeners, postage stamps, or dog breeds (all on my list of handy conversation starters), but I really don’t care. I have the gift of unlimited first impressions, so I’m going to get what I want—embarrassing and/or useful information on Grant.

It’ll serve him right for sleeping in. It’s like I always say: anyone who sleeps in past sunrise is just asking to lose.

“Are you saying he’s a virgin?” I ask, biting off a piece of melon.

“Oh, well, uh,” she sputters. Every instinct in me screams to laugh nervously and change the subject.

Sorry, social conditioning, today we’re going rogue.

She catches my eye, but I just stare her down. No, I will not be changing the subject. I will ask every awkward question my heart desires—a real dream come true for me—and I won’t give a shit. As I stare my best icy stare, she smiles and then laughs again.

“I like you.” She reaches forward, squeezes my hand a little, and then grabs a piece of toast.

I pause. She likes me? No parent has ever said that—my own exempt, although I feel like their words were a bit coerced due to the aforementioned social conditioning.

“No.” She covers her mouth like a cute old lady when she speaks. “I have no illusions that my thirty-four-year-old son is a virgin.” I breathe out a sigh of relief. At least he hasn’t been saving himself for some fabled soulmate his whole life. That really would’ve added another level to this all. “It’s just that I’ve never had him bring a girl home. Though I imagine he did when he was living on his own. Maybe. He’s rather private about this, which is why I was so surprised to see he had a guest this morning.”

She smiles at me, like she’s sending a compliment my way. I don’t bite. I will not be distracted by shiny promises of inflated self-worth. No, I’m much more interested in the other thing she said.

“What do you mean when he was living on his own? Was he out on his own? Did he force you to let him move back in? How long was he on his own for? Did he do his own laundry while he was gone? Why did he move back in?”

Grant’s mom (I really should ask her name) finishes her bite of toast slowly, looking far away as she does so.

“How much do you know about what happened?” she asks finally.

“Almost nothing. We’re virtual strangers and most of our interactions have been based on orgasms, suspicions, and lies.”

Grant’s mom laughs again. Weird family. Maybe I should lend them Dr. Debbie’s book. There’s a whole chapter about inappropriate laughter. The TL;DR is that it’s discouraged. Then again, she’d just forget everything she read with the reset.

“It’s funny to have a conversation, just the two of us, at this hour in the morning. For years and years, it didn’t matter what time it was, the house was constantly loud, loud with the sounds of running feet, yelling, and laughter. My husband and I had six boys—which, just between us girls, I recommend accepting what kind of ammo your husband is shooting after three boys and stop trying for a girl. Grant is the youngest of them all. Although, I’m sure you can tell that at a glance, along with the fact that he’s a Sagittarius.”

She smiles at me. I get the distinct feeling that I’m supposed to chime in here with some agreement.

“Oh, no,” I say flatly. “I think astrology is perhaps the most nonsensical thing that mankind has ever thought up.”

“I take it you’re a Taurus, eh,” she muses.

I don’t deign to respond to that.

Mostly because she’s somehow right. Stopped clock and all.

Grant’s mom smiles weakly at me, a recognition that she knows she’s right. A couple seconds tick past as we sit in a silence that somehow manages to be tense and comfortable all at once. It’s a silence that I realize is being counted in broken heartbeats, punctuated only by the ticking of the clock on the wall.

“This house used to be a lot louder,” she continues finally. “I still wake up every morning expecting to hear the boys fighting downstairs or something being broken. I know it wouldn’t hurt so much every time I wake up to silence if I wasn’t expecting something else. It’s just hard to break old habits.” She gestures to the enormous plate of food in front of us. “Clearly.”

Instead of assaulting her with the thousand questions that plague my mind about what happened, I just smile and wait for her to continue. At her own pace. If she wants.

Even with the day resetting, I don’t want to make things rougher on her than they need to be. Apparently, somewhere between her catching me sneaking out and cooking every obtainable egg, I wound up liking Grant’s mom.

This is not going to look good for my ‘not soulmates’ argument.

Breathing out a broken glass sigh, Grant’s mom continues. “Do you ever wish you could go back in time and relive a day? I do. Constantly. I wouldn’t even want a special day. I just want to go back and relive one of those crazy, hectic, stressful, normal days. I want to wake up to more bodies in my bed than there were the night before. I want to scrape the boys off the walls to pile them in the car to get to school. I want to show up frazzled and late to work. I want to drive them to hockey and listen to them chatter in the back of the van. I want to go to bed with a million things on my mind, but also with the complete peace that comes from knowing that everyone I love is under my roof. That everyone I love is safe.”

Grant’s mom picks up a forkful of food and sets it down without eating it. She’s adrift in a sea of memories, a smile playing on her lips. Mesmerized. I can only imagine the sort of mundane memories that promenade through her mind right now.

It’s not lost on me that she’d give anything to go back and live an ordinary day. Not me. I’m on repeat of this day, but it’s the day where I meet Grant. I guess I would call it a special day. If I had to relive any other day, I’m not sure I’d be able to find a single moment of joy in it. Satisfaction for a job well done, sure. But joy? The kind of happiness that has you smiling over an increasingly cold plate of eggs decades later? No.

Not even close.

“The silence came in by degrees. First one of my boys went off to college. Then another was always out with his friends. Next thing I knew, they’re buying their own houses and having their own babies. Of course, when Fred died, I discovered what true silence is. It’s the sort of silence that comes from losing a part of yourself.” She bows her head and dabs at her eyes. It’s a little while before she speaks again. “Grant, my sensitive baby, moved back shortly after. I didn’t say anything, I would never say anything. He just knew. Not that I’m expecting him to stay forever,” she adds quickly. “He’s here now though because silence and loneliness only live in the present.”

She stops speaking, but the house isn’t silent. Not really. There’s the ticking of the clock, the sound of our breathing, and a hum in the house—a hum that I always feel when Grant’s around.

“So, he didn’t move back in because he’s a lazy mooch who wants you to wash his socks?” I ask, still daring to hope.

Grant’s mom chuckles. “No, that Zagreus Hart certainly pays him well enough. Great man he is.”

I shrug. “My current theory is that he’s a super villain with some sort of plan for world domination.”

Even though her eyes are still shiny with tears, she throws her head back and laughs a laugh that seems to cleanse her soul. I can practically see the stress fall off her. She still looks surprised because of her eyebrows, but she also looks beautiful. I imagine she looked this way all the time with a squad of kids cracking her up day and night.

“What’s so funny?” asks a sleepy voice from behind me that I’d recognize anywhere.

“No idea,” I answer.

“This girl of yours is funny,” Grant’s mom answers at the same time.

Grant walks up behind me and rests his hands on the back of my chair. He’s close enough that I can feel the heat radiate off him. Goosebumps erupt on my arms. I’d like nothing more than to lean over the back of the chair against him. I know that he’d wrap his arms around me and press a kiss to the top of my head. I know that he’d hold me and everything would feel perfect.

So I don’t.

“Yeah, she’s a real card,” Grant says without an ounce of sarcasm. “I’m glad to see you’ve met my mother, Shelly.”

Shelly. Isn’t that just the most mom name out there.

For some reason, learning her name is the straw that breaks this camel’s back. I can’t sit here with Grant and Shelly and eat a ridiculous breakfast and see how wonderful my life could be, if only I could learn to be a more pleasant version of myself.

The kind of person Grant would actually want when all the shine wears off.

The kind of person who is happy with just being happy.

Because that’s not me. When I’m Shelly’s age, I don’t want to look back and reminisce about an average day. No, I want to reminisce about the day I took down an evil corporation. I want to reflect on the day I saved the world from whatever pollution he has planned. I want to reflect on the day I was the biggest, baddest boss out there.

I’m not the type of woman that men settle down with because I’m not the type to settle.

I’m sure destiny is pleasant and all, but I’m not going to stick around and find out what it has planned for me. No, I’m going to run as fast and as hard as I can from that.

Instead, I’m going to bend the future over and make it my bitch.

I don’t care that I’m in a time loop, I got shit to do.

“Thank you for breakfast,” I say before I storm out. Obviously, I’m going to thank the woman for making me an army’s worth of food. I may be a woman on a mission who refuses to be tied down to anyone, but I’m still Canadian. I have to be polite.