Thankfully, the pattern is broken when I catch movement from the house next door. A woman is there, watching us from her porch. Her hair is silver and to the nape of her neck. A green and pink shawl drapes over her shoulders to shield her bare skin from the cool morning breeze. She’s thin and small, but her hazel eyes shine with massive warmth.
I wave and smile a half smile, calling, “Mrs. Brandywine!”
She descends the steps of her long porch. “Silas. I wondered if that was you.”
Oliver’s head snaps toward me and our approaching guest. “Mrs. Brandywine? Mrs. Brandywine!” He drags Julius with him and meets us by the van. “I know who you are. Baba told me. You were my babysitter.”
“Oliver?” she says.
“Yep.” He does a twirl for her. “Professional ballerina at your service, ma’am.”
She smiles. “I know. I’ve watched your performances on TV.”
“You’re a ballet fan?”
“Big time.”
Oliver is giddy with glee. “Then you must know who this is,” he says, tugging his boyfriend’s hand.
“Julius Vincenzo,” she says.
“She knows us, Juli!”
She laughs. “I do. I’d love it if you’d sign something for me before you go, Oliver.”
“I will. And he will too. Anything you want. The least I can do. I know you looked after me all the time.”
“I did.” Her expression says she missed him. “Come in the house, we’ll find something, and I’ll load you up with some of the goodies you used to like for the road. I always have some in the freezer.”
“Wow. Okay. Yeah. That all right, Dad?” he says to me even though he’s twenty-five and it isn’t something he needs my permission for.
In a way, I do the same. I don’t often leave a room he’s in without checking in to make sure it’s all right with him that I go. Sometimes it’s just a look or a brief touch of his shoulder, but it’s what we do. We check in for comfort. We feel the need to make sure the other is okay.
Little things—second nature things—I’ve never noticed before but have come to my awareness since … well I’m not sure.
“Take your time. We’re not in a rush.”
“Kay.”
“Go’on inside,” she says. “I want to speak to Silas a moment.”
Oliver races across the yard with Julius in step with him, twirling him by his hand at intervals so his long skirt can fly around him.
“He turned out lovely, Silas,” she says.
She’s complimenting me. I don’t know how to respond. It feels wrong to take credit for his upbringing when most days I hung by a thread—about to collapse from physical exhaustion, emotional exhaustion, or both—and surely luck is to thank over and above anything I tried to do. I am proud of what a thoughtful, kind, and self-assured boy I have.
“Thank you,” I say. It’s what you’re supposed to say.
Her mouth twists wryly. “He’s just like you. Don’t you know it? Don’t you remember?”
I shake my head. “It’s hard to imagine I could have ever been that carefree.”
“I remember. I’ve known you since you were born. Your mother and I were good friends before she passed away. Every time I spied you in the yard, some animal was trailing after you or flying around you. That’s the sign of a pure heart, you know.”
My nose wrinkles of its own accord, but visions of the kittens and puppies that keep finding their way into my lap at home flash across my mind. “I thought Snow White was my mother.” I try to joke as a way to hide the discomfort this line of conversation is stirring.
“You are your mother, Silas.”
