Page 187 of Wait for Him

"That's amazing. It's a gift, knowing what you want that early. I had no idea what I wanted to do at first."

"You knew my dad when he was a teacher in Houston?"

"I did, yeah. He was my brother's AP teacher, and they lived two doors down from us growing up."

"That's so cool." He nods, still moving food around his plate without any of it making the trip to his mouth. "So you knew me too, then? When we lived there? Or did you move here before I was born?"

I put my fork down and clasp my hands in my lap, mostly because they've started trembling and I don't need them joining the conversation.

"Yes. I knew you."

He nods again, eyes fixed on his plate.

"James?"

He looks up, and for a second I see the tiny face I held in my arms in that hospital bed the night he was born. Fifteen years disappear so fast that I have to remind myself this is the same child, just bigger now, sitting across from me with questions he has every right to ask.

"You don't have to be nervous with me. What do you want to know?"

"Well. Mom and Dad told me when I was younger that I was adopted. That's never been a secret, you know?" A small laugh escapes him. "I mean, Dad is this huge blond Thor-looking gargantuan, Mom is a tiny redheaded Scot, and both my siblings have strawberry-blond hair. Even if they'd never told me, eventually I would've started questioning the math."

Sense of humor. Check.

Thank God I contributed something besides abandonment issues and weird hair.

"You want to know if I knew your mother. Is that what you're getting at?"

"No." He shakes his head quickly. "No, I'm sorry. I'm not." He sighs down at his plate. "I'm so blowing this."

"You're not blowing anything. I'm not going anywhere, James. We can take all night if you need it."

He looks up at me and smiles, then reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. "There are these photo albums from when I was little. The last time you were here, when you said you were a friend of my dad's, I knew you looked familiar. It bugged me for weeks."

He sets the phone on the table between us and starts scrolling through pictures from Houston, before we moved. I recognize a lot of them. James in the front yard. James at the park. Birthday parties, cookouts, random afternoons on a street I haven't seen in years.

Then I start noticing the backgrounds.

Me.

I'm sitting in our driveway while James plays in Samson and Lauren's front yard. In another, I'm at the park under a tree while he's on the swings. Then I'm standing at the edge of a birthday party, half-turned away from the camera.

He keeps scrolling, and there I am again.

And again.

Picture after picture, year after year, me somewhere in the frame.

I look across the restaurant at Samson and Lauren, and the realization hits hard enough that I have to press my lips together.

They did this on purpose.

Those sneaky motherfuckers.

All those years I thought I was watching James from a safe distance, they were documenting me doing it. They kept proof that I was there, even when being there was all I could manage. I don't know whether they always intended to show him or whether they simply thought one day he might ask, but either way, they made sure there would be an answer.

The tears come quietly while James scrolls through the last few pictures and puts his phone back in his pocket.

"When I saw your hair..." He touches his white streak again and gives me a small shrug. "Well. I'm a math person, you know?"