And I had believed, in the way a mother believes even when she knows better, that I had raised a son who understood family.
Apparently I’d been wrong about that last part.
I didn’t move for a long time. The phone lay on the table in front of me as if it had weight, as if it were holding me down. The message glowed, accusing and bright. Outside, I could hear the thin chirp of birds and the distant hum of a lawnmower starting up somewhere down the street. Ordinary sounds. Life continuing.
The morning light shifted. It crept slowly across the floor Robert had refinished with his own hands, each board sanded and sealed with careful pride. I could still picture him kneeling there, sleeves rolled up, the scent of varnish thick in the air, telling David, who was fifteen at the time, to stop running through the house because the finish needed time to dry.
David had rolled his eyes and grinned anyway, then darted away laughing.
A memory like that should have warmed me.
Instead it made my chest ache.
For nearly an hour I sat at the kitchen table. I watched dust move in the sunbeams. I listened to the refrigerator cycle on and off. I thought about all the choices that had led me here. The sacrifices, the compromises, the quiet times I’d told myself it was easier not to argue. The blind trust that comes when you love someone and refuse to see the parts of them that could hurt you.
Finally, I picked up my phone again.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I could have asked him why. I could have begged for an explanation. I could have sent a paragraph about how much I’d done, what I’d endured, what I’d given.
