The laughter inside had finally died down. One upstairs window was still glowing, but the backyard remained dark.
“Not here.”
He replaced the garden stone carefully, though there was nothing beneath it now, and motioned for me to follow him toward the storage room.
Mom was awake.
She sat on the edge of one of the narrow beds wearing the cardigan I had bought her the previous Christmas. A battery-powered lamp rested on a plastic crate between the beds.
When she saw me, she covered her mouth.
“Gabriel.”
That was how I knew how frightened she had been.
Nobody except my mother called me Gabriel anymore.
I crossed the room and hugged her.
For a few seconds, she held me as if I were still seventeen and leaving Carmona for college.
Then she pulled back.
“You weren’t supposed to come.”
“You told me not to.”
“I know.”
“That practically guaranteed I would.”
A weak smile appeared.
Dad shut the door.
The three of us looked around the little room.
I noticed things I had missed through the window. Mom’s sewing basket. Dad’s reading glasses. Two framed photographs. Their medications arranged neatly on a shelf. A small electric kettle.
They hadn’t been staying there for one or two nights.
They had made a life fit into a room that had once held rakes and paint cans.
I kept my voice calm.
“How long?”
Mom looked at Dad.
“Almost four months,” he said.
I turned away for a moment.
Four months.
Every first Monday, I had sent them money.
Every Sunday, I had called.
Mom had told me about tomatoes from the garden, a neighbor’s new dog, Dad’s aching shoulder, the church fundraiser, a broken kitchen faucet.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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