“Nate, it has been…” Rowe’s mom, Karen, begins to talk, but she sits back and looks at her husband for a few seconds mid-sentence, taking a deep breath. The smile on her face is the kind that looks like it could switch to tears at the drop of a hat, but she manages to hold it in place when she looks back to me again. “It has just been truly a pleasure to meet you. Tom and I are really glad you and Rowe…well, we’re just glad she has someone here.”

Rowe looks embarrassed by her mom’s statement, but I appreciate the sentiment. I don’t know how much they know I know, but there’s a sort of feeling I get from her parents—I can’t put it into words, but I get a sense that they trust me. And they should. I would walk through fire for their daughter. Hell and back—without even questioning it.

“Well, there’s been something on my mind…our mind, actually,” Tom begins, and Rowe sits forward on her seat, her face covered in concern. “Nothing’s wrong. Nothing at all.”

He smiles back at his wife, and they both look nervous, like this is something they’ve rehearsed.

“Rowe, your mother and I. Well…we haven’t…gosh, I’m not sure how to say this,” he says, looking to Karen for help, and she just squeezes his hand on the table and nods with a smile. “Well, since you’ve been gone to college, that’s really been the first alone time we’ve had…in a couple of years.”

Her dad is doing his best to dance around the reason Rowe has been home, probably at their side, for the last two years. It makes me wonder how often, if ever, they have talked about the shooting and what it did to their daughter.

“Are you guys getting a divorce?” Rowe interjects suddenly, her palm sweating instantly in mine.

“Oh, honey! God no. No,” Karen pipes in, once again exchanging that strange, nervous glance with her husband. “It’s…oh boy. There’s no easy way to say this, so—your dad was given a huge promotion at work. It’s a good thing. It’s…it’s a great thing actually. But, it means we’re moving. To San Diego.”

“We’re moving to San Diego?” Rowe asks.

“Yes. And you’ll love it there—you know, over the summer? And I was able to pick up a contract with San Diego State, teaching economics.” Her mom looks nervous, the way she’s sitting perched at the edge of her seat, just waiting for her daughter to smile, congratulate her, and tell her she’s excited. But Rowe’s fidgeting in her lap—and I can tell she’s lost.

“But, what about our house…in Arizona?” What she means to ask is what about Josh, and her memories—however tragic they may be. And I know this is what has them concerned the most.

“Well, that’s the thing. Your dad starts at his new position the first of the year, so we’ll be getting the house ready to sell, and hopefully it will go quickly. And part of the promotion was also a vacation—your dad sort of won this trip…to the Bahamas. And, well, we have to go, over Thanksgiving.”

Rowe looks like she wants to throw up, and I don’t know if it’s all of the change being thrown at her at once, fear of having to travel to a place like the Bahamas over Thanksgiving, in a plane, over water, or the fact that she will lose one more connection to Josh. “Can Rowe come home with me?” I hear myself saying it before I even have time to think it through, but when I feel her hand thread even tighter through my fingers, I know I have to keep going. I’m her life raft right now. “I mean, for the holiday. Like you said, you guys haven’t had much alone time. And…it might be nice to have a vacation, you know…on your own? And well, my parents really would love to have her come. And we don’t do anything very formal. I’d like her to come. I…I’d like it a lot.”

I don’t know who looks happier about my idea—Rowe or her mother, who has actual tears developing in her eyes. She looks at Tom and nods, signaling her approval, and Tom turns to his daughter with his shoulders scrunched and his brow pinched.

“Rowe? Would you be okay with that? I mean, we don’t really do anything formal either, and your grandparents aren’t coming over this year. It would just be the three of us anyhow,” he asks.

Rowe looks from her parents to me and then to her lap, her lip tucked between her teeth before she finally looks up at me, her eyes reaching inside to my heart and squeezing. “Are you sure it’s okay? I mean, that your family would want me?”

“We want you,” I say, leaning a little closer and whispering the rest. “I want you. Please, come home with me.”