"Hey Mum," Lewis leaned over the breakfast bar on his arms and rocked a little like he was letting his legs swing beneath him.

"Hi," Gillian greeted from the sink, where she was washing baby potatoes for their dinner. Owen was supposed to help her prepare the evening meal soon but while she was deciding what they were going to make she had absently also made a start.

"Have you ever had a long distance relationship?" Lewis stood again and made small circles with his index fingers and thumbs and linked them together, then moved both his hands, still linked, from right to left across the front of his body. When he had finished, he went back to leaning.

Gillian looked over at her son. He was seventeen and off to college in a few months. It was scary to think. Soon he would be gone. His blue eyes were earnest as they waited for her answer and his medium brown hair almost obscured his view. He refused a hair cut though; that was how he liked it. "No," Gillian gave a slight shake of her head. "I haven't." And she knew that he was asking with Hollie in mind.

She wasn't sure, because decisions hadn't quite been made yet, but she suspected the two of them didn't plan on going to the same college. Which she was kind of relieved about. She didn't want her son following some girl to a college he didn't really want to attend when he was so brilliant he had his heart set on engineering. And the best place to study that was MIT. As much as Gillian loved Hollie... she was also glad her son didn't seem to be, as Cal put it, completely 'cunt struck'.

"You and Dad were never apart?" He used 'separate'.

Gillian felt a spike of alarm. Had he? Had Cal told him about those six months? Those six months she had almost managed to forget about? Did they even count anymore and did they even count in this conversation? They had been apart but not because of distance, because they had broken up. And so she wouldn't be lying if she shook her head and said that they hadn't. "Not more than a week anyway," Gillian added, using 'long' and 'week'. Cal had gone away on business sometimes but that was certainly not the same thing as years apart, not even months.

"Oh," Lewis noted.

Gillian waited for him to go on but it seemed he needed a moment to process the information or gather his thoughts. Gillian put the cleaned potatoes on the bench, dried her hands and went back to the fridge. It was Sunday and tomorrow was shopping day so for dinner this evening, they were basically going to use up everything else in the fridge. She picked out capsicums and eggs and took them back to the bench.

"Do you think it's tough?" Lewis asked next now that she was back facing him. He used 'difficult'

"Long distance?"

"Yeah."

Gillian stood for a second, thinking, or, at least, deciding how she was going to phrase her answer. "Yeah I think it would be quite tough. Even if you were mentally prepared for it. It's important to have a physical connection as well as just regular contact and you can't really do that if you're a million miles apart." Not that she was encouraging him to not have a long distance relationship with Hollie but, actually she wasn't sure what she was saying. It was going to be tough, if they did decide to go down that road, and if he was asking her for her opinion, that was it.

"That's what I think," Lewis spoke again, pressing his index finger against his forehead absently. "I just kind of think that, what if Hollie meets someone really nice at her college? What if she meets a really great guy but she doesn't think she can be with him because she's holding out for me?"

Gillian was surprised enough to stop what she was doing. She leaned on her side of the bench, to mimic his position, but her legs didn't swing, her feet didn't even leave the ground.

"I don't think that's right. We might be meant to be, but we might not," Lewis added, using a 'maybe' gesture.

"Do you love her?" Gillian cut in, curious, and finding a good opportunity to pry into her teenager's life.

"Yeah, I do," Lewis admitted. "But you know. We're seventeen." He looked a little amused, a little embarrassed, a little resigned.

Gillian gave a nod of agreement. But what did he mean by 'we're seventeen'? That they were still just kids, working things out, that seventeen was not enough time to know, or that he shouldn't resign himself to just one person when he was so young? Or probably both.

"And I'm not saying I wanna dump her or anything but I want to be practical. It would hurt less if we sort of, put it on hold or something," he used 'stop. "And then she could feel free to find someone if someone happened to be right there, rather than her resist someone and then give in and that's cheating and then call me up to confess. I'd rather not do that."

Gillian listened, thinking he was being rather impressively sensible and mature but she didn't want to interrupt. She wondered if he'd gone to talk to his father first and if he had, what Cal had said. She wondered how much advice she should give, or whether she should just observe. And then she would gush all over his father later about what a smart young man he was turning into. Seriously. She couldn't really have hoped for better. Where did Lewis even get these ideas from? He was like a forty year old trapped in a teenager's body. Oh, it was a bit like when Cal had lost his memories and knew things but still had to figure out the context because the information wasn't all there.

"What do you think Mum?"

"I think that's a smart way to think about it," she flicked her index finger away from her forehead sharply. "Have you talked to Hollie about this?"

Lewis gave a slight shrug and he looked down at his hands, which had fallen still. Gillian suspected that meant he wasn't so confident doing so. Or maybe he had and it hadn't gone down well and now he was looking to be vindicated. Maybe he just didn't know what to say yet.

"I think we should talk about it before school finishes though," Lewis mused, twisting his open hands back and forth at the wrist, and Gillian got her answer. She stood up again and reached way over to give his hand a little squeeze.

"You'll work it out," she told him encouragingly. He looked up and gave her a wan smile, his pale blue eyes were warm though, pleased.

Owen came into the room and sauntered over to where his mother was standing. He put his arm around her waist. "Do I have to help with dinner now?" He asked.

"Yes, you do," she put her arm around his shoulder as she leaned away from her eldest again. "Great timing sweetheart," she turned them both, like they were Siamese twins attached at the hip, towards the chopping board already set up. "You can start with dicing up the potatoes."

"Dicing them?" Owen looked up at her, confused. Gillian saw Lewis slink away from the room out of the corner of her eye.

"Yes. We're going to have fried rice."