“You didn’t tell the important part,” Nora said. “You saved that for tonight.”
My hands continued trembling on the steering wheel during the drive home.
Mark was waiting on the porch, his face pale.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have…”
“Take me upstairs,” I said.
He unlocked the guest room.
My mother looked back at me from the wall.
Her eyes were exactly as I remembered them when she stood at the kitchen window, and above her stretched a ceiling filled with half-finished silver stars.
I lowered myself to the floor and finally cried the way I had refused to cry for three months.
Mark knelt beside me.
“I didn’t know how to reach you,” he said. “You went so quiet.”
“I know,” I whispered. “I went quiet from myself too.”
Leo climbed onto the bed and dipped his brush into a small jar of silver paint.
“Mommy,” he said. “Come finish the last one with me.”
