I felt anger rise immediately.
“If this has anything to do with Noah having Down syndrome—”
“It doesn’t.”
“Then what is this about?”
Mom sat on the edge of my bed.
For several seconds, she seemed unable to decide where to begin.
Then she asked:
“Do you remember when your father left?”
I frowned.
“Of course.”
“You were twelve.”
“I know.”
She looked down at her hands.
“You stopped eating lunch.”
My arms slowly dropped to my sides.
“How do you know that?”
She looked at me.
“Noah told me.”
The Secret My Mother Had Kept for Six Years
I didn’t understand.
Mom explained that during the worst months of the divorce, she had once been sitting alone in her car in the school parking lot.
She had been crying.
She thought nobody could see her.
But Noah had.
“He came over to me,” she said.
I sat beside her.
