Five months later, my mother was gone. An aneurysm took her so fast that the last real conversation we’d had was about whether I’d put my shoes away. The house filled up with relatives who whispered in the hallway and glanced at Frank like he was a stranger who’d wandered in. He isn’t her real father. Her aunt could take her. He’ll want his life back now.
The night after the funeral, I hid under the kitchen table with my knees against my chest. Frank found me there just before dawn. He didn’t ask why. He just lowered himself onto the floor beside me.
“Are you leaving too?” I whispered.
He looked like I’d hit him. “No.”
“Everyone leaves.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise?”
He held out his little finger under the table. “I promise.”
He kept it. He walked me down the aisle years later. At my daughter’s christening he stood beside me with one hand cupped under her head, still afraid I might drop her, even though I was thirty-two. Whenever I asked about the years before my mother, he gave me the same line every time: “The part that mattered started when you showed up, sweetheart.”
