Chapter 10: She Comes to the Door
She came to the house on a Friday evening without calling first.
I opened the door and she was standing on the porch, and for one disorienting second the image overlapped with another one — a small gift box, black marker, *Happy birthday, brothers* — and then it resolved and she was just my mother, smaller than I remembered, standing in the porch light with her hands clasped in front of her.
"I know I shouldn't have come," she said.
"I know you said to go through the lawyers.
But I needed to see you."
"You should leave," I said.
"Five minutes.
Please."
I didn't open the door wider.
I didn't step back.
I stood in the frame and looked at her.
"Say what you came to say," I said.
She pressed her lips together.
Her eyes were wet.
"I know what I did was wrong.
I know that now in a way I couldn't let myself know it before.
But I need you to understand that I was watching you disappear.
You and Daniel both.
That baby needed so much, and you had nothing left to give, and I was so afraid of losing you—"
"You were afraid of losing me," I said, "so you took my son."
"I thought I was saving you."
"You thought you knew better than I did what my family should look like." My voice was steady.
I was surprised by how steady it was.
"You decided, without asking me, that I couldn't handle my own child.
You forged my name.
You took money.
And then you let me grieve him for eighteen years." I paused.
"That is not love.
I don't know what it is, but it is not love."
Her face crumpled.
"I'm sorry.
I am so sorry."
"I believe that you're sorry now," I said.
"I believe you mean it.
But Rowan spent eighteen years not knowing where he came from.
He spent two years trying to find us.
He is eighteen years old and he is just now learning what his family sounds like." My voice broke slightly on that last sentence and I let it.
"Your sorry doesn't give him those years back."
She was crying openly now.
"Can I see him?
Just once.
I just want to—"
"No." The word came out clean and final.
"That is his choice.
I will tell him you came.
I will tell him you said you were sorry.
What he does with that is up to him."
She stood on the porch for another moment.
The light caught the tears on her face.
Then she said, very quietly, "I never stopped loving you.
Any of you."
"I know," I said.
"That's the part I'll never fully understand."
I closed the door.
I stood in the hallway with my back against it and breathed.
Rowan appeared at the top of the stairs.
He had heard.
I could see it in the careful way he was holding himself.
"Was that her?" he asked.
Same question as before.
"Yes."
He came down the stairs slowly and stopped at the bottom.
"What did she say?"
"That she was sorry.
That she loved us." I looked at him.
"She asked to see you."
He was quiet for a moment.
"What did you tell her?"
"That it was your choice."
He looked at the front door.
Then back at me.
"Not tonight," he said.
"Okay."
"Maybe not for a long time."
"That's okay too."
He nodded.
He stood there a moment longer, and then he said, "Eli's trying to teach me to play cards.
He's a terrible teacher."
"He really is," I said.
The corner of his mouth moved.
"Are you coming?"
May you like
I looked at the door one more time.
Then I followed my son down the hall toward the sound of his brothers arguing about the rules of a game, and I didn't look back.
