“Yes,” I breathed in relief. She had once again saved me from my awkwardness by reading my mind. I felt lighter with the question out in the open.
“No, he wasn’t your father. I’m sure he would have liked to have been. I can still see the way he looked at me when we were in high school. I know he had a hard crush on me, but I had my heart set on another.
“No, I cared a great deal for Santiago, in particular because of that night, but also because of how he cared for this family. He loved your Gram, always bringing around a sweet for her on Sunday nights. He was such a good work partner for Pap and when your Gram died he took on more and more of the work.
“Neither one of them would have told you this, but Pap lost his way when Gram went. The rock that kept him balanced was gone from his life. His work became shoddy, he knocked over a couple of headstones with the riding mower, and once he even flooded the lower half of the cemetery by dragging a water spigot out of the ground with the back of the rider.”
“I thought Santiago did those things? He told me he had when Pap let him do the riding, but on the condition he was sober.”
“That may have been what he told you, but the truth was it was Pap. Pap was so distracted by Gram’s passing, he just couldn’t focus on much. You wouldn’t have noticed it much, and by the time you went to work for him, the two of them had a pretty good routine down. You see, Santiago even cared for you.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, you never saw your Pap weak in any way, Santiago took the blame in the stories he told you, because it was expected of him. Beyond that he loved you. He just didn’t know how to show it.
“It was that goodness that no one else saw in him, those gestures for Pap and our family, that meant so much but still, that wasn’t why I cared for him.”
The night had covered us, the light was gone from the deep blue sky now dotted with stars. In the city, there were no stars, just concrete and neon.
Maybe Ma felt the same safety I felt in the dark. Maybe she felt it was time to unburden herself of this story. Maybe she thought it was the right point in my life, or in hers. Maybe a thousand different maybes. Who knows why we choose to do the things we do when we choose to do them.
I felt her turn towards me as she took my hand in the dark. I looked at her and smiled.
“I know you’ve wanted to know your entire life. I don’t know why I haven’t told you. At first it was because I thought you were too young. Then maybe it was fear you’d be disgusted with me. Or maybe that you’d hate me. But I think I haven’t given you enough credit for understanding?
“I don’t know why now feels like the right time, but as I look up and see all those pinpricks in the sky, I can’t help feeling small. That feeling is such a wonderful reminder of how large the universe is and how short a blip our lives are in the actual passing of time. There isn’t time for carrying these secrets. You’ll feel how you feel. I can’t control that, and I don’t want to.
“I am tired of carrying this secret around; of keeping it from you. It’s only fair to ask if you want to hear it?”
“Ma, please, tell me,” I squeezed her shoulder in the dark.
She took a breath to collect herself, “Santiago Holmes was your brother.”
“He was what?”
“Well, your half-brother.” I could feel her smile at my surprise.
“My brother? But he was so much older than me?”
“Do I need to explain how a baby is made?”
“No, but, that would mean – wait, am I adopted?”
She laughed at this. “You are not adopted. How could you be? Your eyes are carbon copies of my own, you know this. No, your father died in a fire in the mills, just like I’ve always told you. He was a great man.”
