“I got her help.”
“You gave her an ultimatum.”
“I had a baby to protect.”
“And she was still his mother.”
They stood several feet apart, speaking in controlled voices that carried years of unfinished arguments.
Silas moved closer to me.
I rested a hand lightly on his shoulder.
Evelyn noticed.
The anger left her face.
She sat on the edge of the bed.
“I didn’t mean for you to find out this way,” she told Silas.
“How did you mean for me to find out?”
“I thought your father and I would agree.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“So you hid it.”
Evelyn looked at the letters in her lap.
“Yes.”
Silas considered that.
“Dad hid it too.”
Daniel lowered his eyes.
“Yes,” he said.
There was something remarkable in the way Silas accepted the answers. He did not cry. He did not demand immediate explanations for every lost year.
He seemed to be rearranging the shape of his world one fact at a time.
“Has Mom been here?” he asked.
Evelyn looked at Daniel.
“Don’t look at him,” Silas said. “I asked you.”
His grandmother’s eyes filled with tears.
“Twice.”
Daniel stepped back as though she had pushed him.
“You let her into this house?”
“She came when Silas was at school.”
“You had no right.”
“She wanted to see where he lived. She wanted to know what books he liked and whether he still hated peas.”
“Did she see him?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
Evelyn hesitated.
That hesitation changed the room.
Daniel saw it.
So did I.
“Mom.”
“She saw him from the window once.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Silas looked toward the window overlooking the backyard.
“Was she the lady talking to you?”
Evelyn nodded.
“Three nights ago?”
“Yes.”
“You told me it was the radio.”
“I was frightened you would come downstairs.”
“Why?”
“Because your father didn’t know she was here.”
