Page 212 of ClickBack

“Yes.”

She looks at me, waiting. I have nothing to add that will change it.

She gets up. The coffee table blocks her, and she moves around it, still holding the ultrasound.

“You told me he left.”

“He stopped seeing me before he died.”

“Mama.”

I hear what I have just done.

“I let you believe he was alive,” I say.

“You told me. I asked you whether he ever called. I asked if he knew where we lived.”

“I remember.”

“I asked if he knew when I had Zion.”

I put my hands in my lap so she won’t see me reach for her before she wants it.

“I know.”

“Did you think I’d forget asking?”

“No.”

“Then what did you think?”

I look at the envelope. The photograph is still inside.

“At first, I thought I was keeping a painful thing out of our life. Later, I didn’t know how to explain what I had already told you. I kept waiting for a time when it wouldn’t hurt so much.”

“For who?”

I look up.

“For me,” I say.

She sits on a box across from me, careful with the ultrasound even now.

“Did you go to the funeral?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I was afraid to.”

Brandi’s black dress comes back to me. Pressed and hanging from the closet door before I got up that morning.

“Your grandmother told me she would go with me. We could walk into the church together, or I could go on with my day. She let me choose.”

“What did you do?”

“Went to work.”