The Boy You Starved for Him novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: What Mom Brought

Mom came in the next day at the lunch rush.

She stood just inside the door with a canvas bag on her shoulder and her reading glasses pushed up into her hair.

Every stool at the counter was taken.

A trucker looked up from his soup and offered her his seat.

"No, thank you," she said. "I'm here to see my son."

I was carrying a tray of sandwiches because Norman had finally let me do one easy job.

I put the tray down on the pass.

"Mom."

"Quinn." She did not move toward me. "Can I sit in one of those booths? I won't stay long."

I took the last booth by the window, and she slid in across from me.

Her hands were folded on the table. They were shaking.

"I brought something," she said.

She took a flat package out of the bag and unwrapped it from a dish towel.

It was a framed photograph.

I knew it before she turned it around.

Two boys sat on a porch swing in sweaters. The smaller one had a cowlick, and he was laughing so hard his eyes were shut.

Behind us, red leaves covered the lawn.

"You were eight," Mom said. "I found it on Friday. I haven't looked at it in years."

I held the frame by the edges.

"Why did you bring it?"

"Because I wanted you to see that I know who you are."

"Mom, you told the conductor on the phone that I staged an ambulance."

She went still.

"I was on a train floor," I said. "A man was holding a flashlight to my eyes. You said you'd Venmo me, and you told the conductor to make me stop the performance."

"I thought you were playing a trick."

"I know what you thought. That's what I'm telling you. You didn't ask if I was breathing. You told a stranger I was lying."

Her mouth opened and closed.

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