I want to be accurate about that.

It was awkward and slow and full of the specific pain of two people trying to have a relationship that has been removed from them by other people.

Noah asked factual questions, because that’s what a thirteen-year-old can manage — where did they meet, what did she do for work, was he named after anybody.

Alma answered every one completely and then had to stop twice.

She had made too much food.

There was a pot of something on the stove that could have fed nine people, and rice, and a plate of pastries from a bakery on the corner that she mentioned twice by name, and Teresa kept quietly putting things in front of Noah that he had not asked for.