“You boys are my world,” he used to say. “Don’t you ever forget that.”
But Clara was a different kind of weather entirely.
“You should be grateful we even took you in!” she would snap when we left a dish in the sink. “Don’t forget you’d be rotting in an orphanage if it weren’t for us!”
Noah learned to go quiet. I learned to apologize.
Then, when we were 10, Josh passed away.
Clara called maybe twice a year, mostly to remind us how much she’d given up.After that, the house lost its color. No birthday cakes. No new toys at Christmas. The front row at our school events remained empty.
When Noah and I graduated high school, I asked Clara if she’d come.
“You’re adults now, Eric. It isn’t my responsibility anymore,” she said.
“It’s one afternoon, Clara.”
“Handle it yourselves.”
So we did. We packed our bags, started college, and built careers from nothing. Noah became an engineer. I went into design. Clara called maybe twice a year, mostly to remind us how much she’d given up.
From the kitchen, I heard voices. Clara’s, and someone else’s.
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