My mother arrived the following afternoon with a small suitcase and a paper bag of groceries.
I heard her car pull into the driveway while Ethan was sitting at the kitchen table, drawing on the back of an old envelope.
He looked up when the engine stopped.
“Grandma’s here.”
I nodded and went to open the door.
My mother stood on the porch with her coat unbuttoned and her hair pushed back from her face. She looked tired from the drive, but the moment she saw me, her eyes moved past my shoulder toward the hallway.
“Has anything else happened?”
“No,” I said.
It was the truth, although it did not feel like enough of an answer.
She stepped inside and put her suitcase beside the stairs.
Then she hugged me.
My mother was not someone who hugged first and asked questions later. Usually, she wanted to know what had happened, who had called, and what needed to be done before she allowed herself to show how frightened she was.
That afternoon, she held me for several seconds without saying anything.
When she finally let go, she looked at Ethan.
“There’s my favorite artist.”
Ethan smiled a little.
“I’m drawing something.”
“I can see that.”
She glanced at the paper, but she did not ask him to explain it. I was grateful for that.
I had spent the previous day learning how quickly an innocent question could become something a child felt responsible for answering.
My mother put the groceries away while I helped her unpack.
She had brought bread, eggs, apples, and the particular crackers Ethan liked. She had also brought a container of soup from the place near my sister’s house.
The ordinary things made the kitchen feel less strange.
For a little while, we talked about the drive and my sister’s new curtains. My mother told me that my sister had bought the wrong size twice and blamed the measurements both times.
Ethan laughed.
It was the first unguarded laugh I had heard from him since the visit to the barbershop.
I wanted to keep the afternoon there.
I wanted the envelope to remain an envelope, the drawing to remain a drawing, and the barber’s concern to become nothing more than a misunderstanding.
But after Ethan went upstairs to put away his pencils, my mother turned toward me.
“Claire, I need to ask you something.”
I set the dish towel on the counter.
“All right.”
She lowered her voice, although Ethan was already out of earshot.
“Has he said anything about his father that he hasn't said before?”
I did not answer immediately.
My mother watched me.
“He mentioned a room,” I said. “A room with a light. He thinks he might have been there with his father.”
She pressed her lips together.
“Did he tell you where it was?”
“No.”
“Did he say what happened?”
“No. He only said he felt as though he had forgotten something important.”
My mother looked down at the counter.
I knew that expression. I had seen it when my father was sick and the doctors used words neither of us wanted to hear.
She was trying to decide how much of her fear she could show without making mine worse.
“Do you remember anything about that room?” I asked.
She shook her head slowly.
“I don't know what room you're talking about.”
“You knew his father better than I did in some ways.”
“I knew him as your husband. I didn't know everything he thought about.”
Her answer was fair, but it left me with another question.
“Did he ever tell you he was worried about Ethan's memory?”
My mother looked up.
“No.”
“Did he ever say Ethan had been somewhere with him that I didn't know about?”
“No, Claire.”
She answered firmly.
Then she softened her voice.
“But that doesn't mean there wasn't an ordinary visit you don't remember. Ethan was little. Children go places with their parents all the time.”
“I know.”
“And sometimes they remember a light or a door or a smell without remembering the rest.”
I looked toward the stairs.
That was exactly what I had been trying to tell myself.
The trouble was that the barber had noticed something before I knew Ethan was thinking about it.
I still did not understand why.
My mother followed my gaze.
“What did the barber actually say?”
I told her about the private conversation, the request to return the next morning, and his explanation that Ethan had mentioned a place he remembered.
I told her he had not claimed anything bad had happened.
I told her he had warned me not to put words into Ethan's mouth.
My mother listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she folded the dish towel into a neat square.
“That sounds like a man who was concerned about a child.”
“Then why did he seem so nervous?”
“I don't know.”
“Why did he ask me to come back instead of explaining everything right there?”
“Perhaps he wasn't sure what he had heard. Perhaps he didn't want to discuss Ethan in front of other customers.”
Those explanations made sense.
They also did not answer the question that had been bothering me since the envelope appeared.
My mother glanced toward the front hall.
“Did the police say anything about it?”
“They told me to leave it where it was until they had finished documenting everything. They asked questions and looked around, but they didn't tell me who had left it.”
“And you haven't opened it?”
“No.”
She nodded.
“Good.”
I almost laughed.
“Good? It has my name on it, and we still don't know how it got there.”
“I know. But you were asked to leave it alone, and you did.”
She reached across the counter and squeezed my hand.
“That's all you can do until someone gives you a reason to do something else.”
I wanted to believe her.
That evening, we ate soup and crackers at the kitchen table. Ethan told my mother about a boy at school who had tried to balance six pencils on one finger.
My mother listened as though the story deserved a full investigation.
She asked how many pencils had fallen, whether the boy had tried again, and whether Ethan thought he could do better.
For several minutes, the conversation belonged entirely to him.
After dinner, Ethan helped carry his bowl to the sink.
Then he stood beside my mother while she rinsed it.
“Grandma?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Do you remember Dad taking me places when I was little?”
My mother stopped washing.
I was standing behind them with a dish in my hand.
She looked at him carefully.
“I remember your dad taking you lots of places.”
“Do you remember a room with a light?”
Her eyes flicked toward me.
It was quick, but Ethan saw it.
“Why did you look at Mom?”
My mother turned off the water.
“Because I wanted to make sure I understood your question.”
“Do you remember it?”
She took a moment before answering.
“No, sweetheart. I don't remember a particular room like that.”
Ethan nodded.
He did not look disappointed exactly. He looked as though he had expected the answer and had still hoped for something else.
“Okay.”
My mother dried his bowl and handed it to him.
“Sometimes remembering takes time. Sometimes we don't remember everything, and that's all right too.”
He carried the bowl to the counter.
Then he returned to the table and picked up his drawing.
My mother waited until he had gone upstairs before speaking again.
“He asked me that because he thinks something happened.”
“He thinks he forgot something.”
“Those aren't necessarily the same thing.”
I looked at her.
She was right.
I had been treating his feeling of forgetting as if it proved there was something specific to recover.
It didn't.
It proved only that he was unsettled.
And I was unsettled too.
Later, after Ethan was in bed, my mother and I sat in the living room with the television turned off.
The house was quiet enough that I could hear the refrigerator start in the kitchen.
My mother held a cup of tea between both hands.
“Do you think his father knew he would remember something later?” she asked.
“I don't know.”
“Did he ever say anything to you about that?”
“No.”
She stared into her tea.
“I keep thinking about the things people don't say when they believe there's still time.”
I knew she was thinking about her own regrets.
I was thinking about mine.
There were questions I had never asked Ethan's father because I had assumed there would always be another evening to ask them.
There were arguments I had ended by walking into another room, certain we would return to them when we were calmer.
Sometimes we had.
Sometimes we hadn't.
“I can't make Ethan remember something just because I want an answer,” I said.
“No,” my mother replied. “And you shouldn't have to.”
She put her cup on the table.
“But you can let him know he doesn't have to work it out alone.”
I looked at the stairs again.
That was the part I could do.
I could not explain the envelope.
I could not explain the barber.
I could not give Ethan a memory he did not have.
But I could make sure he did not mistake my questions for a demand.
Before we went to bed, I checked the front door and the back door.
I checked the locks twice, then stood in the kitchen and looked at the envelope from a distance.
It was still where the officers had left it.
My mother's suitcase remained beside the stairs, and Ethan's drawing lay on the table beneath a glass so it would not curl.
For the first time since the envelope appeared, the house did not feel completely empty of answers.
It felt like a place where we could wait without pretending we were not afraid.
I turned off the kitchen light and went upstairs.
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: Ethan Asked to See a Photograph of His Father, and I Had to Admit How Much I Had Put Away
The Barber Said Something About My Nine-Year-Old Son That I Could Not Explain, and Then a Familiar Name Changed Everything
Part 9 of 20
