Emily had been looking forward to this dinner for weeks. It wasn’t anything extravagant—just a quiet meal with her son, Dean. Something simple. Something they hadn’t done in far too long. She’d had to practically beg him to come, even offering up his late grandfather’s cherished watch as a kind of incentive. She didn’t like bribing him, but ever since he’d gone off to college, his calls had grown rare, his visits even rarer. She knew it hadn’t been easy for him, growing up with a mother who used a wheelchair. Still, she missed him.
As they sat down, Emily tried to fill the silence. “This is nice,” she said, casting a hopeful smile around the cozy restaurant. Dean didn’t even look up. “Yeah, sure,” he muttered. Then, without glancing her way, he added, “I just wish we weren’t stuck by the bathroom. But I guess with your chair, this is the only spot.”
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