Chapter 7: What He Looked Like When He Saw It
Mark arrived at ten in the morning.
He knocked instead of letting himself in, which told me he understood this was not ordinary ground anymore.
My mom made herself scarce.
I heard her bedroom door close quietly down the hall.
I put the listing on the kitchen table.
Mark looked at it.
He didn't pick it up right away.
He read it from where he was standing, and I watched his face.
First: confusion.
His brow pulled together.
Then he picked it up.
Read it again.
Slower.
"This is Mom's address."
"Yes."
"This says it's been listed for two months."
"Yes."
He set it down.
Picked it up again.
Like he was hoping the words would rearrange themselves.
"Where did you get this?"
"It doesn't matter yet.
Is it real?
Do you recognize the address?"
"Of course I recognize it, but—" He stopped.
Looked up at me.
"She's selling the house?"
"She's been selling it for two months.
Quietly.
No sign in the yard.
She didn't tell you."
He pulled out a chair and sat down heavily.
"She told me there was a fire," he said.
Almost to himself.
"There was no fire."
"She told me—" He stopped again.
I sat down across from him and waited.
I had learned, in the past few weeks, that waiting was more powerful than talking.
"I knew something was off," he said finally.
"I knew the fire story didn't quite add up.
The contractor she mentioned — I looked him up once and couldn't find a business listing.
I told myself I was being paranoid."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because telling you would have meant admitting I'd helped bring her here under false pretenses." He rubbed his face with both hands.
"And because part of me — Kate, part of me just wanted her there.
She's my mother.
She's been alone since Dad died.
I missed having her around."
"I understand that," I said.
"I do.
But you made that decision for both of us.
And you made it while I was two months postpartum and barely keeping my head above water."
He looked at the listing again.
"She's not planning to go back," he said.
"No."
"She was never planning to go back."
"No."
His jaw worked.
"She asked me last week if we'd ever thought about converting the garage.
Said it would make a nice extra room.
I thought she meant for Riley."
The garage.
Of course.
"She was talking about herself," I said.
He didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
"Mark." I kept my voice even.
"I need you to understand what I'm telling you.
This wasn't your mother having a hard time and making a bad decision.
She packed two suitcases before Riley was born.
She listed her house before she came to us.
She manufactured a reason to be here.
And when she got here, four days in, she told me to give her my baby." I paused.
"This was a plan.
It has been a plan for a long time."
He was quiet for a long moment.
"What do you want me to do?" he said at last.
"I want you to go home.
I want you to tell her that you know about the listing.
I want you to hear what she says when she can't pretend anymore." I looked at him steadily.
"And then I want you to come back and tell me the truth about what she says."
He looked like a man standing at the edge of something he couldn't come back from once he stepped off.
"And if I do that," he said slowly, "if I confront her — what happens to us?"
"That depends on what you do next," I said.
He picked up the listing one more time.
Folded it.
Put it in his jacket pocket.
"Okay," he said.
He stood up.
Looked at me for a moment.
"I'm sorry, Kate.
I should have protected you from the beginning."
I didn't say it was okay.
It wasn't okay yet.
But I nodded.
And I let him go.
He called me four hours later.
His voice was different — flattened, like something in him had gone quiet.
"She admitted it," he said.
"Not all of it.
But enough.
She said she'd been thinking about selling for a while and that the timing just worked out.
She said she didn't think I'd mind."
"What did you say?"
"I told her she had two weeks."
My breath caught.
"Two weeks to what?"
"To find somewhere else to go." A pause.
"I told her she can't stay, Kate.
Not like this.
Not after what she did."
I pressed my hand flat against the kitchen counter.
"She didn't take it well," he added.
"What did she say?"
May you like
His voice was very quiet when he answered.
"She said if I made her leave, she'd make sure I regretted it."
