Page 214 of ClickBack

“Kindest for who?”

I don’t answer. Rae knows.

“I believed there wasn’t a place for us,” I say. “I stopped trying to find one.”

“Is his mother alive?”

“I don’t know. The last I knew, she was still in Pottstown.”

“Did she ever know about me?”

“I don’t know what his aunt told her. I never asked her myself.”

Rae looks toward the kitchen, then back at me.

“I asked you about medical history.”

“I remember.”

“You should have told me then.”

“Yes.”

“Or before then. I spent years wondering what was wrong with me that he didn’t even want to know me.”

“Oh, baby.”

“You can’t fix that by telling me he was dead.”

I stop reaching for her.

“No,” I say. “I can’t.”

She gets up for a tissue of her own. I stay where I am while she blows her nose, angry with the box when it comes up empty on the next pull.

I offer mine. She takes it.

“Was there somebody else?” she asks when she can speak again.

“I heard he was seeing another girl. That she was pregnant and he was happy about it. I never spoke to her. I don’t know what happened.”

“So there could be more family.”

“There could.”

She looks at me for a long time.

“I don’t want you finding people tonight,” she says.

“I won’t.”

“I mean it. Don’t start calling everybody because you want to do something now.”

“I heard you.”

She wipes her face again. I take the photograph from the envelope and lay it on the cushion between us.

“That’s him.”