Chapter 6: My Mother's Roof

"Ask my mother," I told the microphone.

Declan put his arm around my shoulders and walked me straight through the cameras to the car.

"You have a mother," he said, when the door shut.

"Everyone has one."

"I mean you have one I can meet. I'd like to go this weekend."

I stared at him.

"She'll feed you until you can't stand," I said.

"Good."

"She'll ask if you're Catholic."

"I'm Baptist."

"She'll ask anyway."

On Saturday we drove up to Northeast Philly in his plain black sedan, because I told him a limousine on my street would start a rumor.

It started a rumor anyway.

The block was brick rowhouses with plastic chairs on the stoops.

By the time we parked, three neighbors were pretending to water plants.

My mother stood in the doorway in an apron with a wooden spoon in her fist.

She was five foot two and a size 18, with gray roots and my dimples.

She looked at him, all six foot four of him, and her mouth fell open.

"Ma, this is Declan."

"You're taller in person," she said, to the sky.

"Mrs. Lisowski." He took her hand in both of his. "Thank you for Winnie."

"Don't you thank me. I'm still deciding."

She marched him to the kitchen and put him at the table with pierogi, kielbasa, and a plate of her stuffed cabbage the size of a baby's head.

He ate all of it.

He ate it slowly, and complimented the cabbage, and asked for the recipe.

My mother's eyes got wet.

Gwen came in halfway through, in her scrubs, and sat across from him with her chin in her hands.

"So you're the hot one," she said.

"Gwen!"

"What? He knows."

"I do now," Declan said, and Gwen cackled.

After lunch he went to the back yard and looked up at the roof.