Not you’ll get hurt.
Not I’m sorry.
Not I was scared.
People will talk.
As if gossip were the real injury.
“Let them,” I said.
He fell silent.
I imagined him standing in his kitchen, one hand on the counter, face tightening the way it used to when he didn’t get his way at sixteen, at twenty-six, at forty-two. Some people grow older without ever growing smaller in their own minds.
“Mom,” he said finally, and now his voice carried irritation under the softness, “you’re blowing this out of proportion.”
“No,” I said. “You tried to take my life’s work and rename it concern. That’s the proportion.”
I ended the call before he could recover.
The next morning, he came to my house.
I saw his car pull into the driveway from the front porch. Same silver SUV. Same expensive coat. Same confident walk I had probably helped fund at more than one stage in his life. He climbed the steps like he still belonged to every doorway he approached.
