He wore a red jumper.
I had assumed he preferred keeping it in his room.
“Would you still like it downstairs?”
A small nod.
“Then we’ll find somewhere together.”
My mother joined us before Theo changed for bed.
She knocked.
Asked whether she could come in.
He said yes.
She sat in the chair beside the window.
Theo looked at her for a long time.
Then said:
“Did you know about the blood thing?”
Vivian’s face softened.
“I knew what Camilla said tonight.”
“Did you think it before?”
“No.”
“Not even when Dad was naughty?”
She glanced at me.
“He gave me plenty of opportunities to reconsider my patience.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“The patience,” she continued. “Never whether I was his mother.”
Theo smiled faintly.
Then grew serious.
“Was he hard?”
My mother did not offer a sentimental lie.
“Sometimes we found things difficult.”
He lowered his eyes.
“So she could—”
“No,” she said gently. “Difficult wasn’t a reason to stop being family.”
He looked up.
I watched my mother.
She had given me those answers through actions for decades.
I had not understood how carefully she might once have chosen them.
Theo asked whether I had a favorite chair when I was little.
She laughed.
“The one your grandfather used to read.”
“Did he let Dad sit?”
“Eventually, I couldn’t get either of them out of it.”
My son leaned against my arm.
The question had reached the answer he needed.
There had been room.
That night, Theo wanted his bedroom door open.
I stayed while he changed into pajamas.
He put the three cars on the shelf.
Then returned to move them again.
“Can Camilla come in?”
“Not tonight.”
