The day after my mother’s funeral, the homeless man who had lived behind our house disappeared.
For most of my childhood, Victor had stayed behind our modest rental home in a makeshift shelter built from tarps and salvaged wood. Every single day, my mother brought him food. Mother’sDay gifts
When I returned carrying the meal she had pleaded with me to deliver, Victor was standing beside a black SUV, dressed in a clean coat, holding my mother’s silver locket.
The same one she insisted had vanished when I was eight years old.
“I thought you couldn’t come, Fiona,” he said.
I almost dropped the food container. Food
“Victor? How?”
Without the beard, he looked older. His eyes were exhausted and rimmed with red.
“I brought dinner,” I said. “But what’s going on?”
