She looked at Derek. Then at my father. Then back at me.
“Because we should talk.”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
“That’s too broad.”
A flicker of irritation crossed her face, but she swallowed it.
“About your graduation. About what happened. About why I said what I said.”
“And why did you?”
The corridor seemed to tighten around us.
My mother looked suddenly exposed.
“I was scared,” she said.
I did not answer.
“You were brilliant as a child,” she continued, voice quieter now. “Always asking questions I couldn’t answer. Taking apart radios. Drawing machines. Your teachers said words like gifted, exceptional, advanced. And I was proud. I was.”
I remembered those teachers. I remembered my mother smiling at parent conferences, then growing quiet in the car when they suggested science camps and advanced programs we could not afford.
“But then everything with your uncle happened,” she said.
I froze.
