I didn't sit down right away.
I stood beside the old kitchen table, watching Gabriel pull out the chair my mother used to occupy.
The wood creaked beneath him.
For some reason, that small sound made my throat tighten.
"How long have you been back?"
"Long enough to know you would come."
I looked at him.
"What does that mean?"
He glanced toward the window.
"It means your mother knew you would keep your promise."
I placed my hands on the back of the chair across from him.
"I haven't promised anything except that I wouldn't abandon you."
"That was enough for her."
I didn't like the way he said it.
He sounded certain about a woman I had spent years believing I understood.
"Gabriel, I need you to explain what is happening."
He nodded slowly.
"I will."
Then he looked at the bag of food sitting beside him.
"She used to bring meals like this."
I followed his eyes.
The container was still wrapped in the same kitchen towel I had found in the cupboard.
"I know."
"She always made sure there was enough."
I felt the old anger stir.
"Sometimes there wasn't enough for us."
Gabriel lowered his head.
"I know that too."
His answer caught me off guard.
I had expected him to defend himself.
I had expected him to tell me I was selfish or too young to understand.
Instead, he sat quietly with his hands resting on the table.
"Then why did she keep doing it?"
He looked up.
"Because she believed I needed something more than food."
I pulled out the chair and sat down.
"What?"
He took a breath.
"Someone who wouldn't give up on me."
I wanted to tell him that my mother had needed someone too.
She had been a widow raising a child, working long hours, and counting coins at a kitchen table just like this one.
She had needed help.
She had needed rest.
She had needed someone to notice that she was struggling.
Instead, she had spent years caring for a stranger.
At least, that was how I had understood it.
"She was barely keeping our family together," I said.
Gabriel nodded.
"She told me."
I looked at him sharply.
"She talked to you about us?"
"Sometimes."
"What did she say?"
He hesitated.
"That you missed your father."
I looked away.
The answer hurt more than I expected.
My mother had understood my grief.
She had known why I was angry.
And yet, she had never explained any of it to me.
"Did she tell you I hated you?"
He looked down at his hands.
"She said you were hurting."
That was not the same answer.
I wanted to argue with him, but I couldn't find a way to do it without admitting that he had understood something I had refused to see.
I stood and walked to the counter.
The kitchen still held small reminders of my mother.
A chipped mug.
A jar of sugar.
A folded dish towel hanging from the oven handle.
I touched the mug with one finger.
"She never told me anything about you."
Gabriel remained seated.
"Maybe she thought it was better that way."
"Better for whom?"
He didn't answer.
I turned around.
"She made me promise to look after you before she died. She could barely speak, and she was still worried about you."
His face tightened.
"I know."
"And you weren't there."
He closed his eyes briefly.
"No."
"Why?"
The question had been waiting inside me since the hospital.
Gabriel looked toward the window again.
"I couldn't get there in time."
I stared at him.
"Couldn't?"
He nodded.
"I found out too late."
I wanted to ask who had told him.
I wanted to know where he had been and why he had disappeared.
But he seemed to be struggling with something more difficult than my questions.
He reached inside his coat and removed a folded piece of paper.
It was old.
The edges had softened from being handled, and one corner had been torn away.
He placed it on the table between us.
"Your mother gave me this years ago."
I didn't touch it.
"What is it?"
"Something she wanted me to keep."
I looked at the paper.
"Why?"
"Because she was afraid I might forget what she had done for me."
I felt a sudden chill.
My mother had never asked me to keep anything for her.
She had never told me there was something important I needed to understand.
She had simply asked me to promise that I wouldn't leave Gabriel alone.
"Can I see it?"
Gabriel rested his hand over the paper.
"Not yet."
I pulled back.
"You're asking me to trust you, but you won't even show me what she gave you?"
"I'm trying to do what she asked."
"And what exactly did she ask?"
He looked at me.
"To tell you the truth when you were ready to hear it."
I almost laughed.
"She decided that for me too?"
"No," he said quietly. "She left that choice to you."
For a moment, the room was silent.
Outside, a car passed along the road.
I heard the tires move over the uneven pavement, then fade into the distance.
Gabriel folded the paper and returned it to his coat.
"I know you have questions," he said. "I have a few of my own."
I didn't understand what he meant.
He stood and picked up the bag of food.
"Thank you for bringing this."
He said it with such simple gratitude that I felt ashamed of the resentment I had carried into the room.
I had brought him dinner because I had promised my mother I wouldn't abandon him.
I hadn't expected to feel as though I were standing in the middle of a life I knew nothing about.
Before he left the table, he turned toward me.
"Your mother loved you very much."
I stiffened.
"Don't."
He stopped.
"Don't tell me how much she loved me. I know she did."
I wanted to believe that.
I had always believed it.
But belief had not stopped me from spending years feeling second to a boy who had lived behind our house.
Gabriel nodded.
"Then I won't."
He walked toward the back door.
I watched him reach for the handle.
"Where are you going?"
He paused.
"Somewhere I can stay tonight."
I looked at the black SUV through the window.
"You have a car."
"Yes."
"Then where have you been living?"
He looked at me for a long moment.
"That's part of what I need to tell you."
He opened the door.
"I'll come back tomorrow."
I wanted to stop him.
I wanted to demand the entire story before he took another step away from me.
But I remembered my mother's hand resting in mine at the hospital.
I remembered her fear.
So I let him go.
The back door closed softly.
I stood in the kitchen until the sound of the SUV starting outside reached me.
Then I looked at the folded chair where he had been sitting.
For the first time, I wondered whether my mother had been protecting Gabriel from me.
Or protecting me from something I wasn't ready to understand.
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: The Old Kitchen Held More Memories Than I Could Bear, and a Small Detail About My Father’s Death Made Me Question Everything
I Was Eight When My Mother Started Feeding a Stranger, and the Apple Pie She Gave Him Changed How I Saw Her Forever
Part 5 of 20
