I went outside. The night air was cool. The river smelled like mud and leaves.
My mother looked at me. Her makeup was gone. She’d cried it all off. Without it, she looked older than I’d ever seen her. Smaller.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked.
“At home. Calling lawyers.” She laughed, a thin little laugh. “He told me not to come. He said I’d only make it worse.”
“Then why did you come?”
She didn’t answer right away. She looked at the window, at the people inside dancing.
“Is he in there?” she said. “Your grandfather?”
“Yes.”
She nodded slowly.
“You want to know why,” she said. It wasn’t a question. “Why I said it. This morning. Why I called you that.”
I didn’t say anything. I just waited.
“Because you’re him,” my mother said. Her voice broke on the last word. “From the day you were born, you were him. You had his eyes. You had his face. You looked at things the way he looked at things. Like you could see right through them. Right through me.“
