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My mom and I have brunch every other Sunday. Just a ritual. Habit. Slightly weaponized guilt.

I show up. She pretends not to analyze me. We both lie beautifully.

She’s already at the café when I arrive—corner table, window light, a single espresso like it’s a personality trait. She’s scrolling through something on her phone with the kind of expression that says she’s already had five thoughts sharper than anything I’ve come up with all week.

She looks good. She always does. Elegant in a way that feels curated but effortless—like she has a capsule wardrobe of forty-seven identical blazers and the bone structure to make it work. Fit, polished, annoyingly composed. Most people guess her mid-forties. She’s fifty-three.

She hasn’t dated since my dad died. Fifteen years.

No boyfriends, no swipes, no flirtation at dinner parties.

I used to think it was grief. Then I thought it was standards.

Sometimes I wonder if she’s still loyal to him.

To his memory. My dad was the kind of man who made loyalty seem like a moral endpoint—tall, principled, career military. He died like he lived: with posture.

We hug—efficient, like she’s clocking my blood pressure through osmosis—and sit.

She raises an eyebrow the moment I reach for sugar. “Rough morning?”

“It’s nothing,” I say, even though it is.

She hums .

It’s not a real hum. It’s a diagnostic.

We’ve been talking for maybe fifteen, twenty minutes—nothing dramatic. Just surface-level updates. Work. Travel. A recipe she half-finished. She stirs her espresso like she’s teasing out some secret. Long, slow swirls. Not looking at me.

I stare at mine. It’s lukewarm by now.

Then, without warning, she says: “You run those coaching groups for men. Any of them... my age?”

I blink. Look up.

“Why, do you want to join?”

I shoot for sarcastic, but it comes out a little too sharp.

She doesn’t laugh. Just lifts one eyebrow. “Not exactly. But I thought I might start dating again.”

I blink.

“Oh.”

Then, trying to recover: “I mean—most of the guys are under forty. Some are older. But it’s not really built for...” I trail off.

“Women?” she offers, deadpan.

“Yeah. Or moms.”

She smiles into her espresso. “Good thing I wasn’t asking for access. Just information.”

I blink harder. “Wait. You haven’t dated since Dad.”

She shrugs. One elegant shoulder, like she’s adjusting a silk scarf instead of dropping an emotional nuke on my Sunday.

“He died. He was not canonized.”

That short-circuits me. “You always made it sound like no one could measure up. ”

“No,” she says evenly. “I just didn’t feel like managing someone else’s emotional architecture while grieving.”

Then she adds, offhandedly: “Loyalty made a better story.”

I stare at her.

She doesn’t backpedal. Doesn’t soften. Just takes a sip of her espresso and raises an eyebrow like I’m the one who suddenly got sentimental.

“You told me that story,” I say, quieter than I mean to.

“And you clearly inherited the branding instinct,” she says. “Well done.”

I lean back, arms crossed, trying to keep my expression neutral. She doesn’t miss it. She misses nothing.

“So this whole time,” I say, “you weren’t... mourning, or committed, or whatever. You were just busy?”

“No,” she says. “I was grieving. For years. But grief’s not a cage. It’s a process. And eventually, I finished the part that required silence.”

I process that.

Then immediately try to deflect.

“You want me to screen people? Run background checks? I could set up a private intake form—”

She laughs, just once. “Andrew.”

I shut up.

“You don’t need to manage this,” she says. “But if there’s someone you genuinely think I should meet, send him my way.”

I nod, slowly. She waits.

The thing is, I built a whole system to help men get what they wanted—fast, slick, impressive. But now, when it’s about something real—someone real—I’ve got nothing. Not one guy I’d introduce to my mom.

What does that say about me?

I exhale. “It’s just... weird.”

“Because I’m your mother or because I’m a woman?”

“Because you’re both,” I shoot back. “And because you’ve always said— explicitly —that you had what most people spend their whole lives chasing.”

“I did,” she says. “I also think that’s a terrible reason to stop living.”

I glance down at the table. Run a fingertip along the wood grain like it might distract me from the creeping horror of her being, well, right.

“You know,” she adds, “you coach men. Hundreds of them. You’ve helped strangers build self-worth from scratch. And yet—when it’s me—you act like dating is a nuclear threat.”

Yeah. That’s the part I don’t like admitting. I taught men how to win women. Not keep them. Not connect. Just win. I sold the chase. Polished the pitch. What happened after the conquest? Not my department.

She doesn’t back down.

“This isn’t about replacing your father. It’s about finding something that fits who I am now.”

I go quiet.

She sits back, folding her hands in her lap like a judge who’s already made her ruling.

“This isn’t a crisis,” she says. “I’m not marrying a Pilates instructor. ”

“Yet,” I mutter.

She smiles. “But I am open. And that doesn’t erase anything that came before. It just means I’m alive. And aware. And curious.”

Alive. Aware. Curious. God, she even dates like a therapist.

I finally look her in the eye. “You really think you could find that again? Something like... what you had?”

She tilts her head. “Why would I try to find the same thing twice? The point isn’t replication. It’s connection.”

I have nothing for that.

No retort. No joke. Just the creeping horror that she might actually be right.

She picks up her cup again. “You’re not responsible for how I process intimacy, Andrew.”

I frown. “Don’t say words like that. You’re going to make me drop my croissant.”

“You didn’t order one.”

“Exactly. Intuition.”

She quietly chuckles. Then gives me a look I can’t quite place. Half-maternal, half-clinical. Then gathers her bag.

“We done?” I ask.

“For now.”

I stand. Kiss her cheek. It’s instinct, not obligation.

She pats my arm. “You’re a good man, Andrew.”

I roll my eyes. “Don’t make it weird.”

She smirks. “Too late.”

Then she walks away—confident, composed, and apparently back in the dating pool.

I sit back down and finally drink the espresso.

It’s cold.

But it’s still strong.