I looked toward the half-open door into his house.
Gene had been hiding something, all right.
Just not what my son imagined.
I put both hands on the rails.
I walked up that ramp like I was testing it.
Like he’d built it for a stranger.
At the top, the door swung inward.
Yellow walls.
White cabinets.
A window over the sink with pecan trees in it.
And on the kitchen table, a single envelope.
It had my son’s name on it.
PART 2
The envelope was addressed in Gene’s handwriting.
“Kyle.”
It had been opened.
Then taped shut again.
Across the front, in black marker, in my son’s handwriting, someone had written:
“STAY AWAY FROM MY MOTHER.”
I stood in that buttercup kitchen with my hand on the table and the smell of paint still in the air.
Behind me, the country music stopped.
Gene was standing in the doorway with a paint roller.
