Page 87 of The Best Shot

Mama stood at the sink with her hands in the water and didn’t speak.

“I never…” Her voice tightened. “You did the right thing. You were a child. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Okay.”

She dried her hands slowly on the dish towel.

“Your father was the love of my life,” she said at last. “I knew he was flawed, but I loved him anyway.”

She folded the towel, then finally turned to face me.

“But when you told me what you saw, I had to do something about it. I couldn’t un-know it.” Her voice caught slightly, then steadied. “I would have forgiven him, but he left the next day and that was the end of it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That was the end of a lot of things.”

“I’ve never blamed you for telling me.”

She believed that.

My eyes went to the ultrasound she’d set on the table.

Maybe it was never that she didn’t have enough to go around.

Maybe I’d just been easier to give less to.

“I don’t think I was wrong,” I said. “But sometimes I wonder if you would’ve loved me easier if I’d kept my mouth shut.”

She opened her mouth.

From the living room, CeeCee’s voice cut through, firm enough to carry.

“I said no, Shaun.”

I was already moving.

He was leaning forward in his chair, earnest, intent.

“Just come home,” he was saying. “Please. I swear I’ve changed. Let me prove it to you.”

CeeCee sat straight-backed on the couch. She looked at me when I came in.

“I’m ready to go,” she said.

Shaun’s jaw tightened, the reasonableness fraying like it always did when he didn’t get his way.

“CeeCee—”

“Shaun,” Mama said from the kitchen doorway. “Let them go.”

Shaun stared at her, working through whether to push, then sat back.

Mama crossed to CeeCee first. She took her hands, pulled her in, held her. Her palm rested briefly on the belly before she let go.

Then she turned to me, and for once, she didn’t look away.

It wasn’t a lot. But it wasn’t nothing, either.

I nodded.