A nurse came to wheel Wyatt away first. At the doors, he twisted around on the gurney and found me.
“Love you, Mom.”
“Love you more.”
Then the doors swung shut, and I stood in that hallway with my hand pressed flat against them, the way I’d once pressed it against my own front door. Renata and I sat side by side in the waiting room for seven hours. Somewhere around hour four, she took my hand. Somewhere around hour five, I let her.
“I should have stopped him,” she said. “The toothbrush. The note. I should have told you the moment I knew.”
“Yes,” I said. “You should have.”
“Can you forgive me?”
I thought about Graham. About the promise. About eighteen years of secrets that had almost cost two boys everything.
“I think we’ve all done enough hiding,” I said. “Let’s start there.”
At 4:15, the surgeon came out smiling.
