I’m sorry I never told you.”
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
– ¿Ethan, quién?
Mara no dijo nada.
“Is he your son?”
– No.
“Were you sleeping with Jack?”
– No.
“Then who is Ethan?”
“I can’t tell you.”
I actually laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the situation had become absurd.
“You come to the home of a pregnant widow carrying a letter from her dead husband telling her to find a five-year-old boy, and now you’re telling me you can’t explain who he is?”
Mara flinched.
– Tienes razón.
“Who are you?”
She took a breath.
“I grew up in care. Jack and I knew each other from the children’s home.”
Eso me detuvo.
Jack almost never spoke about those years.
“You knew him as a child?”
– Sí.
– ¿Y ahora?
“I work with families and children moving through the system.”
“Was that why you kept visiting him?”
