Page 79 of Noctis

“I suppose so.” He didn’t seem to know what to say next.

I sighed. “The thing I don’t understand is that you apparently dated her, yet she never said a word to me about you. Why would she keep you a secret?”

“So from that you concluded that I’d made the entire thing up? That I was feeding the police some sort of fantasy to cover my tracks?”

It sounded ridiculous when he put it like that. Not wanting to admit that he was right, I shrugged.

“I think,” Donald said as he stood, “that we should have that drink after all. Do you drink tea? It’s a bit late for coffee.”

I nodded, watching him as he filled the kettle and prepared two mugs. “Your mother talked about you a lot,” he said with his back still to me. “She told me you were a fantastic artist, but that despite her encouragement, you’d never really taken it seriously.”

“I dabble,” I said. “No more than that.”

“Because you don’t think you’re good enough, or because you don’t need the money?”

“Probably both,” I admitted.

He nodded as he placed a steaming mug of tea in front of me. “Makes sense.” He retrieved the other mug from the kitchen counter and returned to his seat at the table. “If it helps, I can probably hazard a guess why your mother didn’t tell you about me.”

“Why?”

“Because we only dated for a few months.”

“That doesn’t―”

He held up a hand, stopping me in my tracks. “And I’m HIV positive, which, while not big of a deal as it used to be, isn’t what most sons are looking for in their mother’s new relationship. I assume she wanted to see how things panned out between us before she dropped that bombshell on you.”

Much as I hated to admit it, his explanation made sense. “How did you—?”

“Become infected?”

I nodded.

“The usual way. I had unprotected sex with someone in the mid-nineties.”

“Did she know she was infected?”

“He insisted he didn’t.” He laughed at my expression. “Bisexuals exist, and sometimes we’re old. We don’t get to a certain age and stop being bisexual.”

“I know that,” I said defensively.

“Anyway,” he said, “the medication I’m on means my viral load is undetectable so I can’t pass it on sexually, but it still carries a certain stigma. I expect she had a particular milestone in mind for telling you, and we never reached that point.” He pulled out his phone and, after fiddling with it for a few moments, turned it around to show me the screen. “This was taken a few weeks after we started dating.”

It showed my mother and Donald sitting opposite each other at a restaurant, both of them smiling. I grabbed the phone to bring it closer, battling an enormous surge of emotion at seeing a part of my mother I’d never seen before. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but bask in a smile I’d never get to see again.

“She got the waiter to take it,” Donald said. “I have a few more photos of her if you’d like me to send them to you.”

“Yes.” The word sounded dry and cracked, like it had been baking in the sun for weeks. I cleared my throat. “I’d appreciate anything you’ve got.”

Donald nodded. “It must be difficult for you.”

“It is.”

“Hard enough that you took matters into your own hands.”

His words reminded me why I was here. I relinquished the phone and tamped down the emotion threatening to spill over, forcing myself to think rationally and ask everything I needed to while I had the chance. “If you were no longer dating, why did you have dinner together on the day she died?”

Donald gave a faint smile. “Things might not have worked out between us, but we stayed friends. I called her for advice.”