“Yeah,” I said. “I got that part. But I don’t see what that has to do with—”

And then, suddenly, I did. I don’t know how, or why. But suddenly, Susan’s—and David’s—meaning sunk in.

And when it did, I couldn’t believe it.

“Oh, no,” I said, with a gasp—and not just because Joe had finally made his move and yanked out a strand of my hair, then taken off in triumphant flight for the top of the refrigerator. “Ow. You don’t think he really meant that, do you?”

Susan said, breaking off another piece of bread, “David tends to mean what he says, Sam. He’s no politician. He isn’t a bit likely to follow in his father’s footsteps. He wants to be an architect.”

“He does?” This was news to me. I was beginning to realize I really knew nothing about David at all. I mean, I knew he liked to draw and that he was good at it. And I knew about the giant serving fork and spoon, of course. But there seemed to be a lot I didn’t know, as well.

And that made me feel worse. Because I had this very bad feeling that it was too late for me to find out about them. The things I didn’t know about David, I mean.

“Yes,” Susan Boone said. “I think it’s easy to understand why he wouldn’t necessarily want to get involved in his father’s business. He certainly wouldn’t want his father involved in his.”

“Wow,” I said, because I was still reeling from her earlier revelation. “I mean . . . wow.”

“Yes,” Susan Boone said, leaning back in her chair. “Wow. So you see, Sam. It’s been there, all along.”

I frowned. “What has?”

“What you wanted,” she said. “You just had to open your eyes a little to see it. And there it was.”

And there it was.

And there I still was ten minutes later—not quite believing that I was there at all—chatting with Susan Boone, a woman who’d once accused me of knowing but not seeing, when the back door to the kitchen banged open. A large man with his long hair pulled back into a ponytail and his arms filled with grocery bags came in. He looked at us with surprise on his handle-bar moustached face.

“Well,” he said, looking at me with friendly, but curious, light blue eyes. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I said, wondering if this was Susan Boone’s son. He seemed to be about twenty years younger than she was. She had never mentioned kids or a husband before. I had always thought it was just her and Joe.

But then maybe I had only been hearing, and not really listening.

“Pete,” Susan Boone said. “This is Samantha Madison, one of my students. Samantha, this is Pete.”

Pete put the grocery bags down. He was wearing jeans, over which were fastened a pair of leather chaps, like cowboys and Hell’s Angels wear. When he reached out to shake my hand, I saw that his arm had the Harley Davidson logo tattooed on it.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, pumping my left hand, on account of the cast still being on my right. Then his gaze fell on the French bread. “Hey,” he said. “That looks good.”

Pete pulled up a chair and joined us. And it turned out he wasn’t Susan’s son at all. He was her boyfriend.

Which just goes to show that Susan was right about one thing, anyway: what you want is right in front of you. You just have to open your eyes to see it.

I chose Candace Wu.