A Happy Family Without Me novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Tuesday

Garner's mother lived in a brick ranch house on the east side, with a ramp built onto the front steps.

I got there at two exactly.

She opened the door before I knocked.

"Thank you for coming," she said. "I made coffee. You don't have to drink it."

I drank it. It was strong and too hot.

The kitchen was small and yellow, and I had eaten forty holiday dinners in it.

On the table lay a thick photo album with a faded blue cover.

She sat down across from me and put both hands flat on the cover.

"I should have called you seven years ago," she said.

"Called me about what?"

"Open it."

I opened it.

The first picture showed a newborn boy in a striped cap.

Under it was written, in her careful handwriting, the date of a day in March.

Garner held the baby against his chest, in his good white shirt.

He was sitting at this table, in the chair I was sitting in.

I looked at his face.

He was crying and smiling at once.

I had seen him cry like that exactly once, the day Poppy was born.

"That's Lorna's son," I said slowly. "But Lorna wasn't in Erie seven years ago."

"She lived in Columbus then."

"Why is Garner holding him?"

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