My mother arrived the following afternoon with a small suitcase and a paper bag of groceries.<\/p>\n
I heard her car pull into the driveway while Ethan was sitting at the kitchen table, drawing on the back of an old envelope.<\/p>\n
He looked up when the engine stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrandma\u2019s here.\u201d<\/p>\n
I nodded and went to open the door.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cHas anything else happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
It was the truth, although it did not feel like enough of an answer.<\/p>\n
She stepped inside and put her suitcase beside the stairs.<\/p>\n
Then she hugged me.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
That afternoon, she held me for several seconds without saying anything.<\/p>\n
When she finally let go, she looked at Ethan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s my favorite artist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ethan smiled a little.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m drawing something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can see that.\u201d<\/p>\n
She glanced at the paper, but she did not ask him to explain it. I was grateful for that.<\/p>\n
I had spent the previous day learning how quickly an innocent question could become something a child felt responsible for answering.<\/p>\n
My mother put the groceries away while I helped her unpack.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s house.<\/p>\n
The ordinary things made the kitchen feel less strange.<\/p>\n
For a little while, we talked about the drive and my sister\u2019s new curtains. My mother told me that my sister had bought the wrong size twice and blamed the measurements both times.<\/p>\n
Ethan laughed.<\/p>\n
It was the first unguarded laugh I had heard from him since the visit to the barbershop.<\/p>\n
I wanted to keep the afternoon there.<\/p>\n
I wanted the envelope to remain an envelope, the drawing to remain a drawing, and the barber\u2019s concern to become nothing more than a misunderstanding.<\/p>\n
But after Ethan went upstairs to put away his pencils, my mother turned toward me.<\/p>\n
\u201cClaire, I need to ask you something.\u201d<\/p>\n
I set the dish towel on the counter.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right.\u201d<\/p>\n
She lowered her voice, although Ethan was already out of earshot.<\/p>\n
\u201cHas he said anything about his father that he hasn't said before?\u201d<\/p>\n
I did not answer immediately.<\/p>\n
My mother watched me.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe mentioned a room,\u201d I said. \u201cA room with a light. He thinks he might have been there with his father.\u201d<\/p>\n
She pressed her lips together.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he tell you where it was?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he say what happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. He only said he felt as though he had forgotten something important.\u201d<\/p>\n
My mother looked down at the counter.<\/p>\n
I knew that expression. I had seen it when my father was sick and the doctors used words neither of us wanted to hear.<\/p>\n
She was trying to decide how much of her fear she could show without making mine worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you remember anything about that room?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
She shook her head slowly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't know what room you're talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou knew his father better than I did in some ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew him as your husband. I didn't know everything he thought about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her answer was fair, but it left me with another question.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he ever tell you he was worried about Ethan's memory?\u201d<\/p>\n
My mother looked up.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he ever say Ethan had been somewhere with him that I didn't know about?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, Claire.\u201d<\/p>\n
She answered firmly.<\/p>\n
Then she softened her voice.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd sometimes they remember a light or a door or a smell without remembering the rest.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked toward the stairs.<\/p>\n
That was exactly what I had been trying to tell myself.<\/p>\n
The trouble was that the barber had noticed something before I knew Ethan was thinking about it.<\/p>\n
I still did not understand why.<\/p>\n
My mother followed my gaze.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did the barber actually say?\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
I told her he had not claimed anything bad had happened.<\/p>\n
I told her he had warned me not to put words into Ethan's mouth.<\/p>\n
My mother listened without interrupting.<\/p>\n
When I finished, she folded the dish towel into a neat square.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat sounds like a man who was concerned about a child.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen why did he seem so nervous?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy did he ask me to come back instead of explaining everything right there?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPerhaps he wasn't sure what he had heard. Perhaps he didn't want to discuss Ethan in front of other customers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those explanations made sense.<\/p>\n
They also did not answer the question that had been bothering me since the envelope appeared.<\/p>\n
My mother glanced toward the front hall.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid the police say anything about it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you haven't opened it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
She nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood.\u201d<\/p>\n
I almost laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood? It has my name on it, and we still don't know how it got there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know. But you were asked to leave it alone, and you did.\u201d<\/p>\n
She reached across the counter and squeezed my hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat's all you can do until someone gives you a reason to do something else.\u201d<\/p>\n
I wanted to believe her.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
My mother listened as though the story deserved a full investigation.<\/p>\n
She asked how many pencils had fallen, whether the boy had tried again, and whether Ethan thought he could do better.<\/p>\n
For several minutes, the conversation belonged entirely to him.<\/p>\n
After dinner, Ethan helped carry his bowl to the sink.<\/p>\n
Then he stood beside my mother while she rinsed it.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrandma?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, sweetheart?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you remember Dad taking me places when I was little?\u201d<\/p>\n
My mother stopped washing.<\/p>\n
I was standing behind them with a dish in my hand.<\/p>\n
She looked at him carefully.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember your dad taking you lots of places.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you remember a room with a light?\u201d<\/p>\n
Her eyes flicked toward me.<\/p>\n
It was quick, but Ethan saw it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy did you look at Mom?\u201d<\/p>\n
My mother turned off the water.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I wanted to make sure I understood your question.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you remember it?\u201d<\/p>\n
She took a moment before answering.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, sweetheart. I don't remember a particular room like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ethan nodded.<\/p>\n
He did not look disappointed exactly. He looked as though he had expected the answer and had still hoped for something else.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n
My mother dried his bowl and handed it to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes remembering takes time. Sometimes we don't remember everything, and that's all right too.\u201d<\/p>\n
He carried the bowl to the counter.<\/p>\n
Then he returned to the table and picked up his drawing.<\/p>\n
My mother waited until he had gone upstairs before speaking again.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe asked me that because he thinks something happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe thinks he forgot something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThose aren't necessarily the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at her.<\/p>\n
She was right.<\/p>\n
I had been treating his feeling of forgetting as if it proved there was something specific to recover.<\/p>\n
It didn't.<\/p>\n
It proved only that he was unsettled.<\/p>\n
And I was unsettled too.<\/p>\n
Later, after Ethan was in bed, my mother and I sat in the living room with the television turned off.<\/p>\n
The house was quiet enough that I could hear the refrigerator start in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
My mother held a cup of tea between both hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you think his father knew he would remember something later?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he ever say anything to you about that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
She stared into her tea.<\/p>\n
\u201cI keep thinking about the things people don't say when they believe there's still time.\u201d<\/p>\n
I knew she was thinking about her own regrets.<\/p>\n
I was thinking about mine.<\/p>\n
There were questions I had never asked Ethan's father because I had assumed there would always be another evening to ask them.<\/p>\n
There were arguments I had ended by walking into another room, certain we would return to them when we were calmer.<\/p>\n
Sometimes we had.<\/p>\n
Sometimes we hadn't.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can't make Ethan remember something just because I want an answer,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d my mother replied. \u201cAnd you shouldn't have to.\u201d<\/p>\n
She put her cup on the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you can let him know he doesn't have to work it out alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at the stairs again.<\/p>\n
That was the part I could do.<\/p>\n
I could not explain the envelope.<\/p>\n
I could not explain the barber.<\/p>\n
I could not give Ethan a memory he did not have.<\/p>\n
But I could make sure he did not mistake my questions for a demand.<\/p>\n
Before we went to bed, I checked the front door and the back door.<\/p>\n
I checked the locks twice, then stood in the kitchen and looked at the envelope from a distance.<\/p>\n
It was still where the officers had left it.<\/p>\n
My mother's suitcase remained beside the stairs, and Ethan's drawing lay on the table beneath a glass so it would not curl.<\/p>\n
For the first time since the envelope appeared, the house did not feel completely empty of answers.<\/p>\n
It felt like a place where we could wait without pretending we were not afraid.<\/p>\n
I turned off the kitchen light and went upstairs.<\/p>\n
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 … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39799"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39819,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39799\/revisions\/39819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}