Mark’s chin was trembling.
“But it’s a lie,” he said. “I’m not Joe. I’m not my dad.”
“Son,” Elmer said. “Your dad’s been dead eleven years. Somebody has to come home for that pot roast.” He leaned forward. “She’s not confused about who she loves. She’s just confused about whose face it’s on. Let her love you with your father’s name. The love’s still yours. It always was.”
Mark put his face in his hands.
He cried on that milk crate in the office of the Prairie Rest Motel at two-thirty in the morning. Big, heaving, ugly sobs. The kind he hadn’t let out since his father’s funeral. Maybe not even then.
Elmer didn’t say anything. He just reached over and put his old, spotted hand on Mark’s back.
And left it there.
Gabby came back at six a.m.
