Fiction | January 08, 2024

Motherlove 

Elisa Faison 

“I’m really sorry. No one told me you were here.” That was the first thing Lily ever said to us, that she hadn’t seen us. But now she was looking me right in the eye, with a little pleading smile, and I softened—which I always did when I felt someone needed something from me that I hadn’t expected I’d have to give. 

Ben and I had been seated for seventeen minutes. For the first five minutes, we had luxuriated in the wait, reading words to each other from the menus on our phones and sinking into each syllable. “Duck confit,” I said, letting myself lean a little Frenchy at the end.  

“Heirloom carrot,” Ben said. “Yuzu. Turnip. Honey.” It sounded more like a grocery list than an entrée—a convention that indicated the dish would be delicious or tiny, but almost never both.