I stared at her. “You can’t even say his name.”
The words cut through the air.
Her shoulders stiffened. “Enough of this talk about your father.”
“You built my life on a lie.”
“Lazarus—”
“Tell me who he was,” I said, my voice breaking. “Tell me what kind of man he was—or I’ll tell you what kind I think he was.”
She turned then, tears gathering on her lashes, her shawl slipping down one arm. “Please,” she said, her voice shaking. “Don’t.”
“I know what you were,” I said. “Before I was born, after I was born. You think I never saw the coins left on the table? The strange faces passing through our door when I was young?”
Her breath hitched.
“I was a child, but I wasn’t blind. I believed you when you said it was work. I swallowed every word you fed me. But now…” My throat tightened. “Now I know what kind of work it was.”
She stared at me as if I’d struck her, her lips parting with no sound. “You don’t understand,” she whispered. “You don’t know what it was like. I had nothing. We had nothing. I did what I had to?—”
“To survive,” I finished bitterly. “You always say that. But I went to war for survival, too. I killed for it. I buried my brothers for it. You sold yours for it.”
Her hand rose to her mouth as if to catch her own breath. The light from the hearth flickered across her face, etching every line of shame into something paper-thin.
“You’re my son,” she said softly. “Everything I did was for you.”
I laughed—hollow, humorless. “For me? You lied so I could die with a story. You gave me a ghost to worship because you couldn’t bear the truth.”
The sound of my own voice startled me. It shook—not from anger alone, but from something deeper, rawer. The kind of pain that didn’t know where to go.
The fire popped, sending a spark into the air. For a moment, all I could hear was my blood roaring in my ears.
She took a step toward me. “Lazarus, my boy,” she said again, her voice trembling like a prayer breaking. “I love you. I love you so much.”
“Then tell me the truth.”
Her lips parted, but no sound came. The tears didn’t fall this time—they only clung to her lashes, gleaming with the light from the hearth.
“I never meant to hurt you,” she whispered. “I only wanted you to believe you came from something good.”
“Good?” The word tore out of me, jagged and shaking. “You call this good? You made me a lie.”
She flinched, one hand rising to her chest as if to hold herself together. “Please, Lazarus… I can’t?—”
“You can’t what?” I snapped. “You can’t speak his name? You can’t face what you did?”
“Stop,” she said, voice breaking, her back turned to me. “Please.”
“Ideserveto know who he was!” My voice cracked, echoing through the small room.
“Every man deserves to know where he comes from—what blood runs in him!”
“Enough!” she screamed, the sound vibrating through her fingers as she covered her face. “I can’t, Lazarus. Ican’t!”
“Why?” I demanded. “Why keep it buried? Why let me live as no one’s son? Why lie—my whole damn life?”
“Lazarus!”
