“Margie, is he my son?”

“Yes,” I said. “Brian is your son.”

Brian still had the wooden spoon in his hand. The stew bubbled behind him, and the spoon was dripping onto the floor. He looked at Weston, then at me.

“You knew he was coming?”

“No, honey. I didn’t.”

Weston bent to pick up his hat, then stopped halfway down. His fingers were shaking. He looked at Brian again.

“You have a son,” I told him. “You have a wife and two boys, too. But this is the first time you’ve seen him.”

Brian’s face tightened. I was glad his wife was out back with the boys. I didn’t want them in the middle of that doorway with us.

“How long have you known?” Brian asked.

“Since before you were born.”

He looked at me as if I’d slapped him. I wanted to reach for his arm, but I knew I had no right to make him comfort me.

“Come inside,” I said to Weston. “You’ve got something to answer for.”

Brian stepped aside. Weston came in slowly, still holding his hat. The front door stayed open behind him, and cool air moved through the hall.

Brian put the spoon down on the counter. “You knew about me?”

Weston shook his head. “No. I swear I didn’t.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I didn’t know you existed.”

The words hit Brian harder than I expected. His mouth opened, then closed.

I knew the feeling. There are things a person wants to hear and things they can bear hearing.

I could have stopped there. Instead I said, “I wrote him one letter. I told him he was going to be a daddy. It came back.”

Brian turned toward me. “You wrote him?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I had an answer ready. I’d carried it for years, and it still sounded poor when I said it out loud.

“I thought I was protecting you from being rejected twice.”

“Twice?” He looked from me to Weston. “I didn’t even know about the first time.”

My cheeks burned. “I know.”

Weston put his hat on the small table by the door. “You wrote to me?”

“I did.”

“When?”

“After you left. I used the address your brother gave me.”

He stared at me. “I never saw it.”

“I don’t know who sent it back. I only know it came back with ‘Refused’ written across the front.”

Weston rubbed his thumb along the edge of his hat. “I never refused a letter from you.”

I wanted to believe him. I also remembered the note on the dresser, and the suitcases gone. The fact that he hadn’t seen my letter didn’t undo what he’d done.

Brian spoke before I could. “Did you ask anybody if Mama wrote?”

Weston looked down. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t want to hear her name.”

The kitchen seemed smaller with all three of us standing in it. I was angry with him for saying it, and angry at myself because I understood it. He’d wanted his new life badly enough to close the door on the old one. I had wanted to keep Brian from being hurt badly enough to keep the truth from him.

Brian looked at me. “You let me think I was the only one who went looking.”

“I know.” My voice came out rough. “I should have told you. I kept waiting for a better time, and then it got harder.”

“I drove all the way to Las Vegas.”

“I know.”

“I sat outside his house.”

“I know, honey.”

He turned to Weston. “I saw you laughing with Starla. I thought you looked right through me.”

Weston held the hat against his chest. “I didn’t know you were there.”

“I never even got out of the truck.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it’s the truth.” Weston stopped and took a breath. “But I understand how it sounds. I left your mother. I made a choice, and I didn’t look back. I can’t tell you I was a good man who missed a message. I wasn’t good to her.”

Brian’s hand closed around the edge of the counter. “You were happy with her.”

“Yes.”

“And you never wondered if Mama was all right?”

“I told myself she was better off without me.” Weston looked up at him. “That was easier than wondering.”

It was the first thing he’d said that sounded like a reason instead of an apology. It didn’t make me feel better. It did make me believe him.

His wife came in through the back door then, the boys close behind. She glanced from Brian to Weston, then to me. The boys had damp sleeves from playing with the hose.

“Is everything all right?” she asked.

“No,” Brian said. “But it will be.”

She took the boys by the shoulders and steered them toward the living room. “Go wash your hands, sweetheart. Supper’s going to be a little late.”

One of them asked if the cornbread was ready. I told him not yet. My voice sounded almost normal, and that bothered me more than if I’d started crying.

Brian’s wife waited until the boys were out of earshot. “Who is he?”

“Weston,” I said. “Brian’s father.”

She looked at Brian. “Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes,” he said. Then, after a pause, “But not for them. Keep the boys in the living room.”

She nodded and went back toward the kitchen. Nobody made a fuss over it. I was grateful.

Weston looked at me. “You said you wrote one letter. Do you still have it?”

I could have said no. The envelope had been in my Bible for so long that sometimes I forgot it was there. But if I brought it out, Brian would see that I had held on to it while keeping it from him. Maybe he would look at me differently after that. I stood there for a second, wishing the choice could be made for me.

Then I went to the bedroom and took the Bible from the dresser.

The envelope was tucked between the pages where I’d left it. The paper had softened at the edges. I carried the Bible back in both hands and set it on the table. Brian’s face changed when he saw it.

“You kept it all this time?”

“Yes.”

I opened the Bible to the page and eased the envelope out. I had written Weston’s name on the front. Under it was the old address in Nevada. Across the middle, in block letters, was the word “Refused.”

Weston leaned toward it, but he didn’t touch it.

“That’s my handwriting on your name,” I said. “The note inside said, ‘You’re going to be a daddy.'”

Brian took the envelope from me. His fingers were careful with it.

“You really wrote to him,” he said.

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell me.”

“No.” I put my hand flat on the table. “I thought I could keep you from feeling unwanted. I see now I also kept you from knowing the truth. I was afraid he would reject you, and I was afraid you would ask me why he left. I didn’t want to answer either one.”

Brian looked down at the word on the envelope. “You shouldn’t have had to beg him to be a father.”

“I didn’t want to beg. I was too proud. That’s the plain truth.”

Weston had gone quiet. The hat sat between his hands on the table.

“I never saw this,” he said. “I should have asked. I should have checked with my brother. I should have done a hundred things. But I didn’t.”

“What did you come here to apologize for?” Brian asked. “Leaving her, or leaving me?”

Weston opened his mouth and looked at me. I could see he wanted to find a clean answer. There wasn’t one.

“I came to apologize to your mother,” he said. “I didn’t know about you. But if I had known, I don’t know what I would have done. I hate saying that. I can’t pretend I would’ve walked through that door back then.”

Brian stared at him. “So you came because Starla died?”

Weston nodded. “Partly.”

“Partly?”

“After she died, I couldn’t keep telling myself there’d be a better time. Then my heart was fixed, and I started thinking about how much I’d left undone.” He turned his hat in his hands. “I don’t want you to think I came because I need somebody to look after me.”

“I don’t know what you want,” Brian said.

“Neither do I, not all the way. I wanted to say I was sorry to your mother. I should have done that years ago. I didn’t know you were here, and now I do. I won’t ask you to call me Dad.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“No. I shouldn’t.”

That answer seemed to take some of the fight out of Brian. Not the hurt. Just the fight.

I reached for the envelope, but Brian kept hold of it. He looked at the handwriting, then at me.

“Did you ever think about telling me when I came back from Vegas?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I was ashamed. And by then I thought telling you would make you feel worse.” I rubbed my thumb along the table’s edge. “Maybe I was wrong to decide what you could bear.”

“Maybe?” His voice was sharp.

“You’re right. I was wrong.”

I had apologized to him before for small things. This was the first time I could remember saying those words without adding a reason afterward.

Weston turned toward Brian. “I didn’t know you were at my house. If I’d known who you were, I would have come out.”

Brian’s jaw set. “You don’t get to make that sound like it fixes anything.”

“It doesn’t.”

“You left Mama with a baby coming, and you were building a life with somebody else. You didn’t have to know about me to know what you did to her.”

“You’re right,” Weston said.

“You left her with one letter from you. That was it.”

“You’re right.”

“You don’t get to walk in and act like one apology puts us back where we should’ve been.”

“I know.”

Brian looked at him for a long time. “No. You don’t. But maybe you can find out.”

I was surprised by the words, though not by the way he said them. Brian had my stubbornness. He also had a steadier temper than I did.

Weston lowered his eyes. “I’ll take whatever you decide.”

“That sounds nice,” Brian said. “Let’s see if you mean it.”

Weston’s face tightened, but he didn’t push back.

My son’s wife came to the kitchen doorway. She’d heard enough to know this wasn’t a simple visit. “Supper’s ready whenever you are.”

Brian picked up the envelope and handed it back to me. “Keep it out. I want to look at it again.”

“I will.”

He turned to Weston. “You can come back next Sunday, before supper. Just you and me. Don’t bring anything for the boys, and don’t call yourself their granddad. We haven’t decided what you are to us yet.”

Weston nodded. “All right.”

“And don’t expect me to forgive you because you came here.”

“I won’t.”

Brian walked him to the door. I stayed by the kitchen table with my hand on the envelope. I could hear the boys talking in the living room. They were arguing about who got to wash first, the same sort of small thing they argued about every Sunday.

At the door, Weston stopped and looked back at me.

“I’m sorry, Margie.”

“I hear you,” I said. “That’s all I can give you tonight.”

He put on his hat and stepped out. Brian stayed inside.

My son closed the door. Then he came back and set the envelope beside the bread basket.

The stew had started to skin over. I stirred it once.