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“Mama, he didn’t even ask me!”

The drawers stop.

“Did he ask me?”

“…No.”

“Mm-hm. So what you expect?” The drawers start back up. “That man don’t ask. He tells. You knew that the day he knocked on my door. Don’t act brand-new.”

I put my forehead in my hand.

“Dylan.”

“What, Mama.”

“You want to marry him?”

I look at the bathroom door. I can hear him out there, walking around, on the phone. Low. In Russian. That voice that does things to me even when I don’t know what it’s saying.

I look at my hand. At that ring catching the light even in here.

“Mama, he put it on me while I was asleep.”

“That’s not what I asked you.” She don’t sound worried. Not even a little. “You got till Saturday to figure it out. I’ll see you Friday. Eat something.”

She hangs up on me.

My mama. Hung up on me. On a Wednesday.

I sit there on the edge of that big marble tub with the phone in my lap and the ocean going crazy outside, and I’m about to text Tasha, girl you will not BELIEVE, when my brain does something on its own.

It starts counting.

Wait.

When was my last…

Mama’s house. The dresser. The touchdown.

I count again. On my fingers this time. Like I’m in third grade.

Oh.

Oh, no.

Girl.

Girl.

My whole body goes cold, then hot, then cold again, like a shower in a bad apartment.

* * *

When I come out the bathroom, he’s off the phone, leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed like he’s been out there the whole time. He probably has.

“Your mama,” he says.

“She knew.”