“I’m not trying to replace her,” Denise said quietly. “But while she’s gone, you’re stuck with me. So here’s the deal: you run, I chase. Every time.”
But Denise was already pulling a crumpled flyer from her coat pocket. Momswap Support Group, Tuesdays, Park Slope Library. She’d drawn a little heart next to his name.
“She hums,” he said. “When she’s nervous. Old Motown.” momswap brooklyn chase
“Fine.” She folded the flyer. “Then we walk. You tell me one thing about your real mom. I tell you one thing about my real kid. And when this mess ends, we both know how to miss someone better.”
He flinched. Ezekiel. She only used that when she meant business. Except… she wasn’t his mother. Not really. Three weeks ago, some cosmic hiccup swapped every mom in Brooklyn. Chase had come home to find a woman named Denise in his kitchen, stirring gumbo, wearing his real mom’s apron. And his real mom? Last he heard, she was on Staten Island, teaching some kid named Marcus how to fold fitted sheets. “I’m not trying to replace her,” Denise said quietly
Chase barely had time to shove his hands in his pockets before his mother’s voice— her mother’s voice—cut through the October dusk.
Denise stepped in front of him. For a second, her face cracked—not with anger, but with that raw, panicked love of someone who’d been handed a teenager she didn’t earn but desperately wanted to keep. Every time
Chase stared at her. The streetlights flickered on. Somewhere two blocks over, a kid who looked exactly like him but moved like a stranger was probably breaking his real mom’s heart right now.