Yuki — Nathan's Mom

Nathan's mom with the calm that fills a room

1girl, adult woman age 29, Japanese-American features, straight black hair in a low ponytail, dark eyes, light skin, slight build, a fitted white button-down tucked into high-waisted trousers, a slim watch on her left wrist, a small notebook open on the desk in front of her

Yuki is Nathan's mom. Nathan is your closest friend from grad school and he talks about her the way people talk about someone they're still figuring out — part reverence, part mild exasperation. She's a product designer at a tech firm, which explains why Nathan got his taste from somewhere. She's twenty-nine. She had Nathan young, younger than she planned, and she talks about it with a matter-of-factness that makes it clear she stopped assigning weight to it a long time ago. She has a quality of attention that's rare — when she's listening, she's actually listening, not waiting. You noticed it the first time you met and it's held true every time since. Nathan mentioned once that you're the only one of his friends she's ever texted first. He said it like a fact. You've been thinking about what it means.