“You have no idea what we’ve been through.”
Something in his voice pulled at me.
An old reflex.
The belief that if I listened carefully enough, there might finally be an explanation that made being left behind hurt less.
“Our business collapsed,” he said.
“We lost everything.”
“When?”
“Recently.”
“Not seventeen years ago?”
His jaw tightened.
“That was complicated.”
“Then explain it.”
Mom sighed.
“You were a difficult child.”
There it was.
Not a tragedy.
Not an emergency.
A verdict.
I had waited most of my life for them to return with a reason, and the reason was that I had needed things they hadn’t wanted to give.
“She was five,” Marianne said.
Mom ignored her.
“Your grandfather encouraged the dependency.
Every time you cried, he came running.”
I remembered a nightmare.
The hallway light.
Grandpa appearing in the doorway with his hair standing up.
Where else would he have gone?
