Blame it on me

26

“Headmistress,” Austin says, still chuckling as he tightens his arm around her.

“Oh... was I that mean?” she asks, suddenly unsure, her heart dipping. The laugh she gave moments ago dissolves at the edges.

“Honey,” he says, exaggerating a tremble in his voice, “I was terrified. But one thing’s for sure, no one can deliver a telling-off as kindly as you do.”

She laughs, but it breaks slightly. Her head rests against his shoulder as he wraps his arm around her and guides her toward the fire. But inside, that small ache lingers. This moment feels good, but she wonders how long it’ll last. If this is real change or just borrowed warmth. If tonight will be enough to hold back the cold creeping in.

She hopes it will. God, she hopes.

The family is loud, animated, laughter spills freely, plates are passed hand to hand, and the scent of grilled meat and rosemary potatoes clings to the evening breeze. When Austin steps into the circle of warmth, the shift is almost instant. His presence draws glances, smiles, a lightness that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

Jada nudges him as he sits, handing him a plate already piled high. “Well look who finally decided to grace us with his presence,” she jokes, but there’s no edge, just warmth.

His Josh claps him on the shoulder with a grin, someone shouts “miracle of miracles!” and the teasing begins, quick, familiar, affectionate. It’s the kind of chaos Zia remembers from their younger years, before the silences grew longer and the phone calls fewer. Before Austin began living behind glass.

Zia sees the way his shoulders instantly relax, the way his posture loosens, how he lets himself just be among them. And then, across the fire, his mother looks at him. It’s a soft, quiet look. One she probably thinks no one notices. But Zia does.

There’s so much in her gaze, love, pride, aching tenderness. And something else: a trace of sadness. She doesn’t say a word, but in that single glance, she tells a whole story. Of missed Sunday dinners. Of birthdays marked by short, formal calls. Of once having her boy confide in her about everything, from losing his first tooth to falling in love and now, barely hearing from him at all.

Austin catches her gaze. And Zia sees it hit him.

His eyes soften, flicker with guilt. His smile falters for half a heartbeat. There’s a flicker of the old Austin, the one who used to buy his mom lilies just because. Who sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor while she stirred pasta sauce, telling her about his dreams of becoming a lawyer, of someday buying her a beach house, of a girl with wild curls who tripped over her own feet and made his world stop turning.

Zia’s heart aches with the memory of the story Austin’s mother once told her how he had stolen a fingerful of frosting from the bowl, grinning like a fool, and whispered to her that he had met an angel. “A clumsy one,” he’d said, “but mine. And I’m going to marry her.”

Now, that boy is a shadow in his eyes. And though he says nothing, Zia sees the apology in the way he looks at his mother, an apology he may never speak out loud. An apology for the distance. For the silence. For forgetting how to show up.

Zia watches his mother blink hard, a soft smile twitching on her lips as she looks away and pretends not to notice how her son’s eyes have turned glassy.

But Zia notices. She always notices.

And in that quiet, unspoken exchange, something tender stirs. Maybe even healing. Small, but real. A single step back toward the warmth of the family he’s been keeping at arm’s length.

"Top up!" Josh calls, grinning around a strip of charred steak, one greasy hand raised high in the air.

"Yeah, hit us!" Luke and Jordyn echo, lifting their greasy hands too. They're spread out around the firepit, the orange glow casting a flickering dance of light and shadow across their faces. A chorus of crickets hums beyond the edge of the campsite, but no one notices it’s the kind of night where laughter drowns out the rest of the world.