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“Levi, what’s happened?” I hear his seat belt clicking and retracting. He turns fully to me.

“My mom died.” I try to hold in the crying but the lump is too big.

“Oh, Levi, I’m so sorry.” He puts his hand on my arm. “When?”

“I don’t know. And before you ask, I don’t know how. Or where. I don’t know if they buried her or burnt her up like some trash.”

He traces a pattern across my arm, and I cover his hand with mine before he can think better of it.

“I told them she was coming back for me,” I say. “When I came to live with the Nicholses in Peterboro, I said they couldn’t rename me, because my mom was going to come to find me, and if I changed my name, she wouldn’t be able to find me. Or she would think I forgot her. And now, she’s gone and I don’t remember her face anymore.”

I hear him rummaging in his glove compartment. He presses a fast-food napkin into my hand.

“I don’t know why I’m so upset. She’s gone. Who cares? She loved her drugs more than me. She never came for me. A week ago I didn’t give a damn if she was alive or dead. And now she’s just gone, and I miss her.”

“Of course you do. How old were you when you lost her?”

“Seven.”

Bastien’s voice is soft. It’s intimate. “She was your mother. You didn’t have the ability to process like an adult. She was perfect. You loved her, no matter how imperfect.”

“You know what happened? You know what kind of person I am? When I was seven, she left me at school. She was too stoned to come and get me. Eventually, the night janitor was coming in and saw me sitting on that little brick wall waiting for her to come and get me. It was only a really short wall, only about eighteen inches. I must have been tiny.”

“What time of year was it?”

“It was right after Thanksgiving. I remember because I was still doing my list to Santa. It was dark and I was scared.”

Bastien swallows heavily. “Go on.”

“So when the janitor came he heard me crying.” I clear my throat. “And he called the principal, who called social services. And they did a wellness check on my mother, and…I never saw her again. She was running a meth lab from the house. I couldn’t even take my toys with me. I came to my first foster family with a garbage bag like a piece of trash. And now she’s gone, so why is it that I still love her when she didn’t love me even a little bit?”

“She did.”

“Bullshit. She didn’t care.”

“She did. Listen to me, Levi.” He takes his free hand and touches my chin, gently guiding me so that I’m looking at him. “She loved you enough to know she couldn’t keep off of drugs, and she stayed away so you could have a life. That’s love. There’s a little corner of the heart that never forgets what it is to love someone.”

I wipe my eyes. “My foster family, they woulda loved me if I had just taken their name, but I chose her. I chose to believe in her. I used to imagine she’d show up one day. Clean, sober, trying to keep her life on track, maybe some crappy job at a dollar store. And she would see me and say, ‘Levi, you’ve grown up so good. I’m so proud of you.’” My eyes mist over again.

“You’re worth being proud of,” Bastien says. “I promise you are.”

“My mom died and nobody even bothered to find me.” I can’t control the crying now, like a flash flood of gunk I’ve been holding onto deep inside is now coming out.

Bastien hands me more napkins. “Keep talking.”

“What about?”

“It doesn’t matter. Whatever you feel like saying.”

“What is it about me that people don’t love me?”

“Why would you say that?”

“Oh, why would I say that? Because just like my mom and my foster family, you looked at me, and did the math, and said, this thing is more important than I am. It’s drugs or it’s reputation or it’s a fucking career.”

“Things aren’t that cut-and-dry.”

The words stop because my throat closes completely. My eyes burn. I swallow several times and mop my eyes. Now that the worst is over, I’m embarrassed as hell. I want to laugh it off. “Shit. I’m sorry. You weren’t supposed to see this. Even if we’d made it thirty years together, you weren’t supposed to see me falling apart. I was supposed to be the strong one. I was supposed to protect you.”