(Sean's POV)
The knock comes at seven on a Tuesday evening. Three sharp raps — no doorbell, because Joanna Clark does not wait to be buzzed in. She knocks the way she enters boardrooms: announcing arrival, not requesting permission.
I open the door.
My mother sweeps in with a leather folio under her arm and the expression of a woman presenting a hostile takeover. Target: my love life. Valuation: whatever the market will bear.
"Sean." She kisses my cheek in passing. The kiss lands and evaporates before I can return it. She is already moving toward the kitchen, her heels clicking against the hardwood in a rhythm I learned to decode at twelve. Tonight's tempo: determined, impatient, armed.
She does not ask about the apartment. She stopped commenting on the apartment after the first visit
