“You were,” I said.
She laughed, wet, into her hands.
“For eight years, every time I saw you in the pickup line, I wanted to scream,” she said. “Not at you. At him. At myself. At a cryobank in Chicago I’d never even seen. I was so scared you’d find out and want Graham. Or want money. Or that Harper would find out and hate us.” She lifted her head. “And then I watched your son grow out his hair for my daughter for a year and a half. In front of the whole school. While they called him names. And I still didn’t say thank you.”
“He didn’t do it for a thank you.”
“I know.” She wiped her face. “He did it because he’s a good kid. A really good kid. You raised him that way. All by yourself.”
“Not all by myself,” I said. “Apparently somebody was sitting at the top of the bleachers.”
