It takes strength and courage to bring dessert to my mom’s for dinner. My mom is a famously good dessert maker. Most people would be too nervous to bake anything for fear it wouldn’t hold up to comparison. Fortunately, Annabeth is both strong and courageous, which meant I got cupcakes.
“Sweetheart, these look amazing!” my mom said, accepting a tray of Annabeth’s latest creations.
Annabeth teared up with gratitude. I have seen her shrug off compliments from gods, but my mom’s praise really got to her. I guess it was because she’d grown up with Athena as her distant maternal figure.
Sometimes I wondered if Annabeth was open to the idea of marrying me someday only because she was excited about getting Sally Jackson-Blofis as her mother-in-law. Honestly, I couldn’t blame her.
Annabeth had started baking because she literally ran out of classes she needed to take for graduation. Despite having the same crazy demigod problems I did, despite having a miserable junior year while I was missing in action, despite being just as dyslexic and ADHD as I was, she had accumulated so many advanced-placement courses and made such good grades that the counselor at SODNYC suggested Annabeth just take a study hall for her seventh course.
Me, I would have said, Yes, please, and can I have a pillow with that?
But coasting was not in Annabeth’s nature. She’d signed up for the elective Beginning Culinary Design. So far, she’d only been working on cupcakes （which was totally cool with me）， but I was pretty sure by the end of the year she’d be constructing bridges and skyscrapers out of angel food cake.
One thing Annabeth didn’t do, however, was make blue food. That was kind of an inside joke between my mom and me. Annabeth considered it sacred and off-limits. Her cupcakes today were green with purple sprinkles, for reasons known only to her.
While she and my mom chatted about frosting, I checked in with my stepdad, Paul, who was clearing stacks of student essays off the dining table. The dude worked nonstop, I swear. It almost made me feel bad I didn’t put more effort into my own homework. Almost.
“Hey, Paul.” I gave him a fist bump.
“Beat any good monsters lately?” he asked.
“You know. Just the usual.”
Paul chuckled. He was still in his work clothes: blue dress shirt, faded jeans, wildly colored tie with pictures of books on it. His gray-flecked hair had gotten grayer and fleckier over the last few years, and I tried not to think it was my fault. He worried for me, knowing my demigod history. He worried for my mom worrying for me. He was a great guy. I just preferred to think the teaching job was aging him rather than the constant life-and-death fights I went through. I tried to keep the worst details to myself, but Paul knew. As much as any mortal could, he had seen my world up close and personal during the Battle of Manhattan.
Tonight, though, he seemed tenser than usual. You would never be able to tell if you didn’t know him, but he did this thing where he tapped his fingertips to his thumb when he was nervous, like he was trying to pinch a string that he couldn’t quite find.
“Going okay?” I asked him.
“Me?” He smiled. “No monster fights this week. Unless you count freshman essays on Romeo and Juliet. Help me set the table?”
There was something else going on, but I decided not to push. I set places for four. In the kitchen, garlic bread was toasting. Lasagna was bubbling in the oven. Annabeth was laughing about something my mom said, and the way they both grinned in my direction, I figured it had to do with me. Annabeth had already seen my baby pictures, so I wasn’t worried about what they were saying. I had no dignity left. Annabeth and I were still together. I figured that was good enough.
Some Bob Dylan vinyl was playing on Paul’s turntable, soft enough to be background music, but with Dylan’s voice, you can never quite ignore him. Not my jam, but I can deal with it. Paul says Dylan was one of the best twentieth-century poets. I mean, the guy can rhyme leaders with parking meters. I guess that’s something?
Once we were all seated, passing around the salad, I noticed something else strange. My mom was drinking sparkling water.
She wasn’t a big drinker, but she usually had one glass of red wine with dinner.
“No vino?” I asked her.
She shook her head, her eyes twinkling like she was still thinking about a private joke. “No. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.”
“About wine?”
“Ahem,” Paul coughed. He was now pinching with both hands, looking for that invisible string. Why so edgy?