I hadn’t noticed. But then, I had barely seen her since all hell had broken loose. That said, it didn’t take a genius to figure out why. “She’s worried about you.”
“Yeah, well, if that was it, wouldn’t she be the one telling me how bad hacking is? Wouldn’t she be the one asking questions?”
“Maybe she’s afraid of the answers.”
“I get that, but something’s off, like it’s not me that’s giving her the creeps. When she’s home, she sits there staring at the table or the floor or her phone, and she looks like she’s waiting for something.” He left the last word up in the air, like he was asking me to tell him what, but I didn’t have a clue.
Feeling useless, I wiped my hands on the dish towel. Hot chocolate, said a little voice in my head. He needs hot chocolate. With whipped cream. We both do.
Opening the cupboard, I removed cocoa powder, sugar, and vanilla. They were on the counter and I was reaching into the lower cabinet for a saucepan when he said, “What do you know about my dad?”
Bent in half, I went still. I hadn’t seen that coming.
I straightened holding the saucepan. “Your dad? Uh, nothing. Why?”
“She doesn’t talk to you about him?”
“Never.” I went to the fridge for milk. “You want to tell me?”
He was leaning against the counter on the far side of the sink, shifting his long legs like he didn’t know how best to arrange them, but his face was suddenly all boy, all angry. “Like I know?” he blurted out. “I don’t know anything. She won’t talk about him. I mean, I get nothing. I’ve asked her a bazillion times, but she makes a face, like the … the”—he glanced at what I held—“the milk smells bad.” His knee went in and out, in and out. “Do I look like my mother? I’m talking hair, eyes, height—like DNA—and the answer is no. I look like him, but that’s all I know. I don’t know where he lives or what he does. I don’t even know his name.”
At the stove now, I said, “Maybe she doesn’t know it herself,” because it seemed like the only way to defend Grace’s refusal to talk. I’d had a friend in college who got pregnant during spring break, ten shots, one night, no clue until weeks later. The only problem was that I knew better. His father was a liar, Grace had told me that first night.
I couldn’t share that with Chris. I couldn’t let it be the only thing he knew about the man.
And anyway, he was shaking his head. “She knows. She just won’t tell me. Like I’ll go try to find him? Why the fuck would I do that if the guy doesn’t want me?”
“Chris.”
“Birth certificate.” His voice cracked under the press of emotion. “His name would be there, right? Wrong. Mine says I was born in Chicago, but I’m not sure it’s true. Bogus birth certificates are easy to get. Were they ever married? Are they divorced?”
I poured milk into the saucepan and added the other ingredients. The silence was charged. He was waiting for me to say something.
I lit the gas and stirred, watching white blend to cocoa as it warmed. Then, looking up, I found his eyes. They were the same soft brown as Grace’s contacts. It struck me that she wore these more often than the blues or greens. I wondered if aligning with her son was why. “I don’t know the answers to your questions, Chris. I wish I did. I just don’t.”
He stared at me for another minute, then dragged his hands up his face and through his curls. With a loud exhale, he deflated. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s only natural you’d wonder these things. At some point, Grace will give you answers.”
“You think?”
“I do. Your mother loves you.”
“You think?” he repeated, still doubting.
“I know,” I said, because it was the truth. From the start, I had always known this about Grace. She might not exhibit maternal love as I would have. But over and above her quirkiness, what had drawn me to her from the first was her concern for Chris. I had seen her leave the Spa mid-massage when word came that a puck had hit him in the face. “She’s just a private person. She has her own issues. We all have them.”
“Not you.”
“Yes, me. No one slides through life without bruises.” I searched for a positive way to say