My mother arrived on a Tuesday.
She came through the apartment door with a bag in each hand and her coat still buttoned and the particular expression of a woman who has been imagining a place for long enough that arriving in it feels slightly surreal. She stood in the hallway and looked at the kitchen and the library door and the east facing windows and she was quiet for a moment in the way she was quiet when something was larger than she had prepared herself for.
Then she said: it smells like rice.
Damien appeared from the kitchen.
He said: Wednesday is tomorrow. I was practicing.
My mother looked at him.
He looked back.
She said: you used too much water.
He said: I thought I might have.
She said: I will show you tonight. We have time before dinner.
She walked past both of us in
