You smile through tears. “You dropped more than you counted.”
“I was trying.”
“You were trying very loudly.”
He laughs, then grows quiet.
“I meant what I said in the church, Mama. I should have noticed.”
You glance up at him. “And I should have told you I was worried.”
He shakes his head. “You shouldn’t have had to.”
There are a thousand answers to that. A thousand things motherhood teaches a woman to swallow until even need feels like a luxury. But tonight is not a night for old guilt to dress itself as wisdom. So you nod.
“No,” you say. “Maybe I shouldn’t have.”
He spins you carefully, too carefully, as if he still sees the years in your joints more than you feel them yourself. When you turn back into his arms, he is smiling at you with that same boyish softness that survived all the years between market stalls and office buildings.
