Mum kept staring at the hallway wall like she forgot where she was.
Claire asked if she wanted water, but she didn’t answer. She just walked closer to the school pictures we had hanging beside the kitchen calendar and the chore chart.
Then she pointed at one from first grade.
“Our son” had a paper turkey taped to his shirt from Thanksgiving week. Under his eye was a small crescent-shaped birthmark.
My mother sat down so suddenly the old recliner squeaked.
I honestly thought she was about to insult the apartment again. Instead she asked Claire, very quietly, “What was his father’s name?”
Claire froze for half a second.
“Marcus.”
That name meant nothing to me. But my mother looked sick.
She opened her purse and pulled out one of those folded drugstore photo envelopes older people keep forever. Inside were pictures from my dad’s funeral. People standing around casseroles and folding chairs in our old church basement.
One photo had a teenage boy in the background holding a toddler.
Same birthmark.
Claire looked at the picture a long time before saying, “That’s Marcus.”
Turns out my mother knew my father had another son before he left us.
She just never thought I’d end up raising his grandson.