I shook my head.
“He used to go to Paige’s school plays. Stand in the very back where nobody would notice. He went to her high school graduation.” Her voice wobbled. “He couldn’t claim her. But he never stopped watching her grow up.”
“And you let him.”
“I let him,” she said. “Because she was a child. And because I loved him, even after.” She looked down at her hands. “I’m sorry I let you be the last to know, baby. I thought I was protecting you. I was protecting myself too. I didn’t want to watch you look at your father differently.”
“I don’t,” I said, and I was surprised to find it was true. “I don’t look at him differently. I just… see him more clearly.”
She put her arm around me, and we sat there until the lights came on in the yard.
My mother and I didn’t speak for almost a month after the party. Then she showed up on my porch with a pot roast and an old photo album, and we sat in Russell’s study until midnight while she told me everything about my father I had never known. The good parts too. Especially those.
