“What’s your favorite subject in school?”
“Art,” he said.
She rolled her eyes — actually rolled them — and ignored him for the rest of the visit.
When the check came, she paid for herself.
In the car afterward, Anna looked at me calmly.
“She doesn’t like me, Jon.”
“She doesn’t know you,” I said.
Anna didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t dramatize. She just said the truth.
“Maybe. But it’s clear she doesn’t want to.”
Two years later, my mother asked the question she always asked when she wanted control back.
We met at the old piano showroom uptown — the place she used to take me as a kid, telling me the acoustics were “clean enough to hear your mistakes.”
Grand pianos lined the room like prize horses.
She ran her fingers along a polished lid and looked at me.
“So, Jonathan,” she said. “Is this going somewhere, or are we wasting time?”
I didn’t hesitate.
“I asked Anna to marry me.”
Her hand froze midair.
“I see,” she said.
“She said yes.”
My mother’s voice stayed level, surgical.
“Then let me be very clear. If you marry her, don’t ever ask me for anything again. You’re choosing that life, Jonathan.”
I waited for a tremble. A crack. Anything that suggested doubt.
Nothing.
So I left.
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