I love that about Debbi, that she can be so honest about how she’s feeling

I stare at Shan, the clank and clamor of the bustling dining room fading to a hum. She’s concentrating on her eggs. They keep sliding off the fork, and she looks comically frustrated by this.

“Shan…” I say slowly.

She looks up at me. “Hmm?”

“Shan, your mom is the principal of your school?”

She puts down her fork, and her eyes shutter.

“Yeah, so?”

I swallow. “My mother. My mother is the mechaneches and main teacher for eleventh grade in my school.”

The smile that breaks across her face is one I recognize. It means “Oh, you get it.”

But I’ve never seen it in terms of Ma before.

“Yeah,” I say through a smile of my own. “I get it.”