“So… what?” The thought of Carrie being nice, helping my sister, makes my gut ache. That’s what friends do, right? They help each other out. I helped Carrie with her wedding date problem, and she helped my sister in a moment of crisis.

We’re even. But it feels weird that I didn’t know about it.

“Maybe Carlos could get transferred here. I’d love to have all my kids nearby,” Mom continues.

“You have five kids, Mom. Good luck with that.”

Mom rubs my head. I feel like I’m eight again. “Ryan will get that lab spot. I know he will. And Paul will make a full recovery and I’ll have you all — ” Her voice chokes with emotion and she turns away. Mom’s really good at expressing positive emotions.

But the negative ones? No. This is freaking me out. Ellen, Taryn, and I all look at each other, frozen in place as Mom grips the kitchen counter’s edge, her shoulders tight but shaking in small movements.

Oh, shit.

She’s crying.

Ellen looks at me like, You’re the man — go do something, and it occurs to me that I am the man. The only son.

The one who becomes the patriarch when Dad is gone.

Responsibility fills me like lead weights in my blood as I stand and go to Mom, putting my hands on her shoulders, pulling her in for a hug. She’s solid but still somehow frail. I tower over her. Nothing’s changed in nearly ten years, after I shot past her my first year of college.

And yet everything has changed.

“I know you have a life in Boston,” Mom says to my chest, sniffling. She pulls away and looks at me, eyes red, the skin underneath loose and wrinkled. For the first time, I see her as a woman, as my dad’s wife, as a person.

Not just Mom.

She’s scared and worried, and I’m reminded, bizarrely, of the moment Carrie kissed me for the first time, forever changing how I viewed her.

“I’m not tied down there, Mom. I’m glad to move back home.”

“What about Carrie? I know you started dating. You went to that wedding together right before your father’s stroke.”

“No, we’re not — that was just me doing her a favor.”

Taryn raises one eyebrow. Pierced.

Busted by the zirconium-wearing teenager.

“If that’s the case, then there’s no reason for you to stay in Boston, is there? And if you get an offer for grad school…” Mom’s voice drops and she smiles up at me as she wipes her eyes.

I’m breathing. Deep and full, the breaths making me bigger, older, wiser. My life is about more than me. Ellen catches my eye and doesn’t react, watching me. Evaluating.

She’s looking at me the way I just watched Mom. Like she’s realizing I’m more than a little brother. Like I’m a man. A man with a wonderful, interwoven family, and with aging parents who need me.

A few years ago, leaving home felt like a kind of freedom. Pushing aside my electrical engineering work, finding meaning in using my hands and body as a tool, working at the O Spa filled something in me that had been hollow.

But now?

Coming home makes the most sense.

With my eyes locked on Ellen’s, I answer my mother’s question.

“Then there’s no reason for me to stay in Boston, Mom. Not a single one.”

* * *

The letter feels heavy as I slide it into my breast pocket of my coat, pressing over my heart like a stone.

I’m resigning.

The day before I got on the plane to come home, I got two calls. One from Stanford, one from my alma mater, Cal Tech.

No matter what, in January I have a job. Turns out all that sex toy circuitry has medical research value, and my skills are, shall we say, valuable in more ways than one. Ellen doesn’t like the idea of Cal Tech because it’s too far away, but a short plane ride from LAX or Burbank to SFO is way better than the long haul BOS to SFO. And no time change.

Besides, she has no say in my choice.

I’ll give O two months’ notice. My apartment is already sublet from someone else, so I can leave easily. Cleanly.

Quickly.

And with no attachments. Free to be.

Unraveling a life shouldn’t be so simple, but there you go. Maybe it’s my own fault. Maybe I came here and never put down roots for a reason.

Maybe I was right all along not to tell Carrie how I really feel, because some part of me knew that putting down roots means intertwining yourself with people and places. Once those vines weave their way in between the cracks, seeking light, you have to cause pain when you rip them out to uproot.

This is all for the best.

As I walk into Chloe’s office, my heart pounds against the resignation letter like a hammer tapping on a nail. She looks up and smiles, then dips her head back down, ticking things off a list with a pen in her hand.

“Ryan! You’re back.” Tick. Tick. Tick.

“Sort of.”

Now I have her full attention. Chloe drops the pen, pushes her paperwork aside, and gestures to the chair in front of her desk. “Have a seat.”

I do, then reach in my breast pocket, pulling out the slim envelope.

Her face falls. “Is that what I think it is?”

The envelope seems so final as it passes from my hand to hers across the wide expanse of clear glass desktop. “Yes.”

The fewer words, the better.

I shift in my seat, uncomfortable, unaccustomed to wearing a jacket so often. The wedding last month, the visits to professors and deans, and now here. Being this formal feels right, though. It’s what grownups do when they’re being serious.

Dress the part.

“I’m resigning, Chloe.”

“No!” she gasps, her lips compressed, her face twisted with a kind of pain that surprises me. “Is this about money?” She’s hopeful, immediately trying to find a way to fix this. To make me stay. “Because we can renegotiate your rates.”

“It’s not about money.”

“Your father? Oh, how rude of me. I should have asked first. Is he – how is he?”

“Making a good, solid recovery.”

She leans back in her chair, body relaxing with relief. “Thank goodness. It sounds like you’re close with your parents.”

I shrug. “I guess. About the same as everyone else I know.”

A really funny look crosses her face. “My mother is still alive and well, living in Florida with Howard, my guardian angel.”