Mom got there first.

“Gonzalo, I know that this cannot be easy for you, but this is all part of growing up. For a long time, I know, it’s been just me and you: my little Lolo.” She tried out the patronising tone that Dr Black had taken a moment ago. “But you need to accept that, as well as your mother, I am also a woman with needs and desires, and that there is another man in my life now…”

After she said those words, I just stared into space in front of me. It sounded completely ridiculous. It sounded like someone else was saying it who wasn’t my Mom. It sounded like I was listening to some actress playing my Mom in a movie version of my life. She wasn’t playing the part very well. This couldn’t actually be happening.

Mom must have mistaken my silence for acceptance rather than disorientation, because she kept going.

“After all,” Mom went on, “it’s only natural that I would start to look for another relationship eventually, Gonzalo. You’ve been growing up so fast, before I know it you will have left home! It was time for me to start thinking about myself again.” With this she gave Dr Black another warm smile, as if this was something they had rehearsed before. “And you’ve been so preoccupied with your own life recently, soon there will be no room left in it for your silly old Momma... You are a busy boy, Gonzalo, and things have been going so well for you lately, you have been doing so well at the—”

Just before she said it I leapt into life to stop her from doing something even more disastrous.

“At my special school!” I said quickly, cutting Mom off. “Yes, I know!” I let out a small sigh; I had just managed to stop her from giving away confidential information in time. I may have leaked it all to Ali, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let Mom leak it to anyone else, let alone her slimy new boyfriend ‘Alistair’. I needed to shut this down, fast. “Look Mom,” I said, “can I see you for a moment?”

Mom’s head drew back little, like she’d been taken off guard. “What do you mean, Gonzalo? You are seeing me now. We are having lunch.” She pronounced the word lunch out of the corner of her mouth with her teeth clenched, like she was actually saying “Stop being so difficult.”

“I know we are, but can I see you for a moment?” I fired back in kind. “You know, somewhere privately?”

“You know what,” said Dr Black, standing up from the table all of a sudden, “I think I need to visit the little boy’s room. I may be a little while. We’ve ordered. There’s time. You two have a chat while I’m gone.”

“Oh,” said Mom, flushing, “thank you Alistair, that’s very kind. Are you sure that’s alright?” She said it like he was doing the most noble and sacrificial thing in the world by going to take a leak.

“Yes,” said Dr Black, “don’t worry, it’s fine, Deborah.” He put his hand back over my mother’s, just for a second, then rubbed her back. Stop touching my Mom! “You two need a moment to talk by yourselves. I completely understand; this is a lot to take in. I’ll be back in five minutes or so.”

He turned and walked off towards the restroom.

As soon as he had gone Mom hunched over and started whispering intensely to me. “Gonzalo, I know that this is difficult for you, and I love you, but whatever you’re feeling right now, it’s no excuse for being so rude!”

I was nearly shaking with righteous fury, but I managed to restrain myself and keep my voice low. “It’s not like you gave me much of a lead-in to this, Mom! You’ve just dumped it all on me all of a sudden!”

She paused. “Alright, Lolo, I know. I’ll admit that things have moved quite fast between me and Alistair. But when you’re my age, you don’t want to wait around with these things. We’ve become very serious, so I thought I needed to tell you about it. Before, you know, before we become even more serious…”

A thought crossed my mind. It was ridiculous, but I felt so pissed off at Mom right now that I didn’t care. “Well maybe you shouldn’t have told me about your relationship at all! Maybe I was better of not knowing about this! You kept it hidden from me for pretty long anyway, why didn’t you just carry on?”

From the way Mom’s brow narrowed I could see that I had pissed her off too. She shifted gear into fast-talking-angry-Jewish-mother mode with record speed. “Well, truth be told, Gonzalo, I am very disappointed in you. Like I said, I had thought that you were starting to grow up. Inviting girls back to our home. No incidents with classmates recently. You have been getting on very well at the...‘special school’ and you’ve even been keeping up with the regular schoolwork your teachers send for you to do by yourself. I thought that you were sensible enough to handle this maturely. But this! This behaviour! Oy… You are embarrassing me. You are putting me to shame. Why can’t you just behave like your normal lovely self and be friendly to Alistair—?”

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“You’re asking a lot of me, Mom!” I managed to butt in, interrupting the flow. I hoped that was a ‘mature’ kind of thing to say. “I mean, he’s not just a boyfriend, is he? He’s a serious boyfriend. He’s an ‘I might be moving in with him soon’ kind of boyfriend. I mean: what?! It’s all so quick, Mom. Next thing you’re going to tell me that you’re getting engaged!”

Mom’s eyes moved left and right for a moment. She had quite a lot of makeup on—blusher and a dash of rouge and even some eye shadow. I guess she was quite pretty. I don’t know! She was my Mom. I wasn’t supposed to be able to tell these things.

“And what would be so wrong with us getting engaged?” she said quietly. “It’s not impossible that that could happen soon…”

“I don’t believe you!” I erupted. I struggled to keep my voice quiet any longer. “This is crazy! It’s too quick! It’s too soon for you to be getting engaged to someone! And of all the people you had to pick, you picked my worn-out old white man doctor, the one regular guy who knows about my abilities! Why him, Mom?! I mean, he’s not even a little bit Jewish!”

“Neither was your father,” Mom said at once. People were looking at us.

“That’s besides the point! Why him?! He’s so old!”

“Gonzalo, I have told you how our relationship began.” She closed her eyes as she spoke, like Dr Black had done, as if the very sight of me had become offensive. “I got talking with him after your first appointment, and he asked me out on a date. Is that so hard to believe? I used to be quite good-looking, you know, before your father made me lose my looks from stress. I am perfectly entitled to be going on dates. And sure, he may be a little older than me, but that doesn’t matter so much when you’re as old as I am. And he’s a doctor. He’s done very well for himself. Ah—but what am I saying? I don’t need to justify myself to you, my teenage son!”

“Arrgh!” I growled with exasperation. Just then a meatball bounced off my neck, thrown by one of the little girls at the neighbouring table, but I barely noticed. “This whole thing is completely ridiculous! I mean, if you’re planning on moving in with him, where are you even planning on living? You could barely fit another person into our apartment!”

Mom went back to fidgeting with her napkin. “Well, Alistair’s place is much bigger than ours…”

Oh God. She’s spent the night at his place. Yuk. Yuk yuk yuk.

“But what about me, Mom?” I said. “You’re expecting me to move into a stranger’s house with you too?”

“He’s not a stranger. In time, you’ll grow to love him too, trust me. Or at least like him. It just makes more sense for us to live with him. You’re too young to live on your own away from your parents; I’ve been very clear about that with Mr Abram.”

“You have?” I said. “When?”

“On the phone. He calls me regularly to update me on your progress, you know. He tried to make the argument to me that you would be better living off at...at the ‘special school’, but I told him that it was best that you stay with me. At least for the time being.”

That raised my eyebrows and stopped me in my tracks.

A new possibility had opened up to me; no, a whole new world of possibilities. I stared off into the distance again for a moment, contemplating them, imagining living and sleeping at The Base permanently. I’d be living with Mute. And the new woman we’d picked up in Iran, whom I hadn’t met properly yet. When we’d finished the mission she had been whisked away, but Abram had told me I would get to meet her at some point, whenever I got to go back to The Base. And I could train every day. I could eat Miracle Force food every day!

Then I came back to reality. Mom still needed telling off for something.

“Look, Mom,” I said, “You have to call the The Base a ‘special school’ in front of him too. That’s the main reason why I asked to speak to you in private, actually.” I dropped my voice so nobody else but Mom could hear it, not even the next-door meatball catapultiers. “You can’t mention The Base to Dr Black. He can’t know about it.”

“Why not?” said Mom.

I ground my teeth. Rrrr. Why was she being so difficult?

“After all,” Mom continued, “he knows about your...abilities, as you call them. He was the doctor you first told about them, wasn’t he? He was the one who passed on your details to Mr Abram in the first place. It wouldn’t hurt to tell him, would it?”

“Yes it would, Mom. You cannot tell Dr Black about The Base, or Commander Abram, or Miracle Force, or any of it! Do you understand me?” I had made a fist on the table. I stopped myself from hammering it just in time. The whole thing would have smashed to pieces.

Mom’s eyes dropped. “Gonzalo... The thing is...I’m sorry, but I already have. I’ve already told him about all of that...”

“WHAT?!” I yelled, standing up from the table.

It took me a second to realise what I had done.

For once Mom went silent. I looked around at the bemused restaurant diners, almost all of whom had stopped their conversations to stare at me, some with forks of food still suspended half-way to their mouths.

“Er...sorry…” I said sheepishly to them. “...pardon me. Please, carry on...”

I lowered myself back into my chair with a grimace. The other diners went back to their meals but I could tell they had realised our table was not going to calm down anytime soon. They started sneaking glances over at us more often. The couple in the corner were whispering about us, I was sure of it. They kept looking over, and the man had his hand up to cover his mouth. This was not going well.

Mom just shut her eyes and shook her head from side to side.

Dr Black reappeared. I hadn’t noticed him walking back to the table. He must have seen the whole thing.

“Hello again,” he said calmly as he took his seat. “What have I missed?”

Nothing, I thought. It sounds like you haven’t missed anything.