My Son Brought a 45-Year-Old Woman as His Prom Date – As She Saw Me, She Said, ‘You Have Five Minutes to Tell Him the Truth, or I Will’
He came closer and let me pin the flower. Austin smelled like his father’s old cologne, the bottle I had left on the dresser and never touched again.
“You clean up all right, kid.”
“That bad, huh?
“I said all right. Don’t push it.”
Austin laughed, and that sound loosened something painful inside my chest. I had not heard him laugh like that since autumn.
“So,” I said, “do I get a name? Or am I supposed to guess?”
His gaze shifted somewhere beyond my shoulder. “She’s meeting me here.”
“Meeting you. Here. That’s bold of her.”
“Mom.”
“What? I promise to be normal. Mostly normal. I have a camera and a will to use it.”
Austin shook his head, smiling down at the floor. “Just don’t ask a thousand questions, okay?”
“No promises.”
“Mom. Please.”
“Go wait on the porch. I’ll grab the camera.”
I took it from the counter, slipped the strap around my wrist, and went outside after him. I rested against the porch rail beside my son and waited for a shy girl in a pastel dress.
Then headlights washed across the driveway.
The car door opened with a quiet click.
I raised the camera, my finger ready over the button, my smile already fixed for the teenage girl I expected to see.
But the woman who stepped out was not a teenage girl.
She was tall, in her mid-forties, wearing a dark dress far too polished for a high school gym.
Red lipstick.
A small handbag tucked beneath one arm.
