“Houston, here—” Sheila calls after me, pivoting around the butcher counter. It’s a family-run grocery store, and she and Chuck have kept me employed for three years, through every up and down. “You have enough time to stop by the house?”

“I do,” I smile, taking the large bundle of steak she’s wrapped for me. “Thanks, Sheila.”

I don’t really have time, but I learned you don’t turn down Sheila’s kindness—especially when it comes in the form of ten-ounce porterhouses. Thankfully, Mom’s home when I pull into the driveway. I don’t even bother turning the car off. She must have just sent the neighbor home from watching Leah.

“Mmmmm, smells good. Whatcha cooking?” I ask, kissing Leah on the head while she slurps alphabet noodles from her bowl. My mom is standing over a large pot my nose recognizes to be her chili. Leaning over, I kiss my mom on the cheek and flash the handful of steak in front of her.

“That from Sheila?”

“Who else?” I say, tossing it into the freezer and grabbing a spoon from the drawer next to my mom. I dip into her pot, and she smacks my hand playfully. When she rolls her eyes, I go in farther, pulling out a spoonful of steaming, red awesomeness. “Oh man. I love it when you make this.”

“Well good, because I’m making enough to freeze for the week,” she says, going back to stirring and adding dashes of whatever bottles she has before her on the counter. My mom cooks everything by instinct; it’s what makes her food so damned good.

“Well, I’m gonna need a lot of frozen meals this week. I’ve got thirty hours at the store, and finals,” I say. I can feel her lecture boiling under the surface as she sets the spoon down on the counter, rolling her hands into the dishtowel and leaning on her hip, turning to look at me. “I know. I know. But this semester’s almost done. I promise; no more than two classes at a time from now on.”

“You do too much,” she says, her lips pursed and her eyes worried. Funny, I feel like I don’t do enough.

“I need to pay my way,” I say, tearing off a corner of the bread and dipping it in the pot for one last bite.

“I’ve got money, Houston. I pay the bills. And I can pay your tuition, too—” I interrupt her before I have a chance to agree with her.

“Yeah, but I’d feel a lot better if you didn’t have to,” I say, distracted by the bubbles Leah is blowing in her milk. She looks up at me with a giggle and wipes away the white mustache above her lip. The smoke alarm starts blaring. Before I can get to the garage door to pull out the ladder, my mom is standing on top of the kitchen chair, poking at the screaming siren with the end of a spatula, while waving the dishtowel in her other hand to clear the smoke from the bit of sauce that spilled on one of the stove burners.

I should stay and help.

“Don’t do that. I see that look on your face. I’m fine, Houston. Now get to class; you’re paying for it,” she says, her mouth in that sideways smile that matches mine.

“Okay, I’ll be quiet when I get home,” I say, propping the garage door open to air out the kitchen while I leave. I rush to my idling car with a can of soda and a few crackers—it will have to tide me over until I get home tonight.

Thank god my mom lives only a mile away from campus. That’s half the reason I stay there. Everything in my life is orchestrated down to the second, because, well…yeah, I do too much. But not doing this much would just feel lazy. Thankfully, the single stoplight between home and campus cooperates today. I pull into the library parking lot and guzzle the rest of my soda, tossing the can in the trash by the door.

The email said the group would be studying by the reference desk, but no one is there yet. I suck at Spanish. I tried to petition the school to let me count HTML as my language credit, but that petition got about as far as the shredder. I only need a year of a language for my computer science degree. Two semesters. But I was about to fail the first one. Not a good start.

My backpack falls on the table, and I sink into one of the well-worn chairs, my body descending deep into the cushions. I run my hands along the wooden arms and the pencil-grooved marks—attempts to carve initials. I wonder how many people have touched this chair and tried to own it with their initials? What a stupid thing to claim as your kingdom.

There’s no way I’m early. I was running late when I dipped the spoon in my mom’s chili, so unless time stopped—and rewound—this tutoring session wasn’t gonna happen. I need this tutoring session to happen.