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“Do you have any nieces and nephews?”
I shook my head. “I don’t have any brothers or sisters. But I do have some cousins, and one of them is just a few years older than you.”
“You have cousins?” Nate asked. “I thought it was just you and your mom.”
“It is. I mean, it was, but then something crazy happened yesterday while I was at my mom’s for brunch. Her parents and her sister showed up. No warning, no clue that they were even considering it. I’d never met anyone from her family, and they’d completely cut off all contact with her when they disowned her.”
“Why’d they do that?” Catherine asked.
Shit. Was this something David and Julia would be okay with me talking about in front of her? I was practically a stranger to this child.
Nate took the decision out of my hands. “Ashlee’s mom is a lesbian.”
I shot him a grateful look. The last thing I wanted to do when trying to make a good impression on his family was step on anyone’s toes.
“Oh, okay.” Catherine frowned, confusion on her face.
I really hoped we weren’t going to have to explain what that meant. I should’ve just told Nate I’d tell him later and avoided this altogether.
“Why would someone stop talking to their family because of that?” she asked. “Miss Barry, my teacher last year, is a lesbian. She brought her girlfriend to the school play. They’re both really nice.”
If I’d known her better, I would’ve hugged her. “Some people get scared or angry when it comes to people who are different.”
“Well, that’s just stupid,” Catherine said, shaking her head. “What fun is it if everyone’s the same all the time?”
“I completely agree,” I said with a grin. At least it looked like I didn’t need to worry about Nate’s family freaking out when they met my mom. If, I amended, my smile fading as I remembered that he and I still had things to work out if we had a future together.
“But they’re okay with her now?” Nate asked, bringing my attention back to the story I was telling.
“It seems that way,” I said. “It didn’t really come up in conversation. I think it took us until an hour after they left to process the fact that they’d actually been there in the first place.”
“They’re not from around here, are they?”
“No, they’re from Tennessee. They flew in Saturday and are spending some time in the city. They said they happened to see a picture of me online, and it made them realize that they wanted to get to know me.”
“That’s great.” Nate’s tone was sincere, but I caught a flicker of concern.
I completely understood it. As much as I hoped their intentions were good, I couldn’t quite shake all of my doubts. I knew Mom had them too, but I got the impression that she didn’t want to bring anything up that could hurt my chances of having a relationship with my extended family.
Once I better understood how things would go with Nate, maybe I’d talk to him about all the new things I had to be worried about. And maybe he could distract me for a little while.
“Do you have a dad?” Catherine asked suddenly.
Nate started coughing, which made me laugh, and Catherine just looked back and forth between the two of us, a bewildered expression on her face. Nate recovered first, but the pleading look he gave me prompted me to rescue him from having to figure out how to explain that to his twelve-year-old niece.
I kept it simple. “I do. His name’s Finley, but I didn’t grow up with him. In fact, I just met him recently.”
“Did your mom do the thing where a doctor helped her get pregnant? I can’t remember what it’s called.”
Her sex ed class in school must’ve been a hell of a lot more thorough than mine had been. I’d gotten myself into a bit of an embarrassing situation when, during my class, I’d asked the teacher if we were going to learn about ways to get pregnant without having sex. Her reply had been so flustered that it’d taken her a minute to realize that my question hadn’t come from naivety but from my mom being very honest about how I’d come to be.
“IVF,” I answered. “Yes, that’s what she did.”
“I thought so. If she doesn’t like boys, that makes sense.”
I wished everyone who talked to me about my family was this accepting. I smiled at her. “Actually, my mom and my dad are going to meet for the first time this coming Friday.”
“They are?” Nate asked.