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“I thought that was a research trip,” Mrs. Mitchell says.

I don’t miss the ribbing in Mrs. Mitchell’s voice. I cast Ben a look and turn my gaze back to the stove, where she stirs something in a pot. I take a deep breath and identify it as the clam chowder she’s famous for.

“It was. I was researching Clara.”

“Ben!” I cry as heat rushes to my face. “He was working,” I say in a rush, though Mrs. Mitchell is laughing with Ben. “Both of us were working, and he was doing actual research, and you made that sound really bad, Ben Mitchell.” I hide my face in his shoulder, especially when a deep chuckle from behind us announces that his dad has joined us in the room.

“The door to your garage is sticking,” Mr. Mitchell says, leaning against one of the chairs at the breakfast nook. Ben takes after him so much, right down to their height and matching dark hair. Though Ben looks like his mom around the eyes, his square jaw and thick eyebrows are all from his father. “Have any WD-40?” Mr. Mitchell asks.

Ben laughs. “No.”

“You’ve seen how empty this house is,” Mrs. Mitchell chides. “He hardly spends any time here.”

“Every time I call, he’s clear out of town, up by the lake … what’s that place called?” Mr. Mitchell grins at me.

For all the teasing directed at me, I can’t help laughing back. Having a family again, one as lighthearted as Ben’s, fills the hollow spaces of my heart that losing my parents left.

“Probably because none of us can bug them at Clara’s place.” Ben’s older sister, Amanda, comes into the room with a grocery sack in her hands and leading her eighteen-month-old daughter in. Ben lets go of me with one hand to scoop his niece up and plop her in his lap while Amanda arranges ingredients for a salad on the counter. “Bowl?” she questions.

“Good luck.” Mrs. Mitchell snorts when Ben shrugs, and Amanda begins searching the various, mostly empty cupboards.

“Where’s Jason?” Amanda asks, glancing around for her and Ben’s little brother.

“Downstairs playing video games on Ben’s big screen.” Mrs. Mitchell rolls her eyes.

“It is a big TV,” Amanda says as she opens another cupboard. Surprisingly, she finds a bowl there. “So I left it here,” she murmurs to herself, which makes the rest of us laugh. “This kitchen needs some serious feminine help, Ben.” She waggles her eyebrows at us.

“Manda…” Ben says in a low voice, not really warning but close to it. I’ve gathered that in his family, if Ben confides anything, it’s to his older sister. I squeeze his shoulder where I have my arm around him, letting him know this kind of teasing is okay too. It doesn’t surprise me that he might have told Amanda about his conversation with me in New York about our future. I’m getting there, the idea of a long-term relationship with him growing on me day by day.

Amanda smirks. “Have you guys settled on your itinerary yet for Europe?”

“Mostly,” I say, smiling as I watch Ben bounce Caroline, his niece, up and down and making her giggle. “Everywhere, pretty much, but we’re going to start in France and then England.”

“She’s dying to see the Victoria and Albert Museum and doesn’t want to put it off. They have a historical movie and TV show costume exhibition next year,” Ben adds, smiling up at me. He’s as excited about that museum as I am, maybe for different reasons.

Amanda tosses the lettuce into the bowl before looking up. “When are you going to let me know if I need to book a flight to one of these cities? They’re not cheap, and the longer we wait to plan that Paris wedding, the more expensive it’s going to get. But Ben will pay for everyone, right? Of course he will⁠—”

“Manda!” Ben says again, this time laughter in his voice as he shakes his head at her. I wait for a lighthearted reprimand about not rushing us, but then he adds, “Of course I’ll pay,” and winks at me.

I shake my head, laughing with them. It flatters me how much Ben’s family gangs up on me to seal the deal between us. What would my parents have thought of him? Would they joke and encourage me to move forward, as quickly as it all seems to be going?

“Clara, let me save you,” Mrs. Mitchell breaks in, coming toward me with a stack of plates. “Help me set the table?”

“Gladly.” I move past her to get glasses from the cupboard and then follow her into the formal dining room off the kitchen, hearing Ben ask Amanda where her husband was.

“Golfing,” Amanda answers before I round the corner to the dining room.

“You okay?” Mrs. Mitchell asks in a lower voice when I enter. “You don’t mind Manda, do you? She’s just teasing, and we all know you and Ben will take this at the pace you need to.”

I smile. Over the course of the time I’ve spent with his family, I’ve learned that Mrs. Mitchell cares for me, whatever I am to Ben—friend, girlfriend, or someday wife. As deep and profound as my feelings were for Quint, I hadn’t gotten that with Mrs. Allen, whether because of the short amount of time I spent in 1928 or the constraints of the day, I don’t know. I welcome the motherly care my relationship with Mrs. Mitchell promises for the future.

“It’s fine, of course.” I set the cups out at the eight-seat, dark wood table. “I was wondering what my mom would say. We didn’t really have the chance to talk about relationship things—except for silly high-school drama.”

Mrs. Mitchell lays a plate down ahead of me. “She’d ask if you loved him.” She glances up, rushing on. “You don’t have to tell me, of course. That’s different, but that’s what she’d want to know. That’s what I asked Ben.” She grimaces, so slightly I almost don’t catch it.

“And did he tell you?” I ask.

Mrs. Mitchell laughs, tinged with worry. “He’s not a very open book, is he? He loves you. I can see that. Hopefully, you can too if he’s not verbalizing it enough.” Now her expression is one of guilt.