“I’m not ready,” I say. The honesty costs me. “I’m not ready to see his face when he finds out I lied to him.”
“You didn’t lie. You protected him.”
“You think he’ll see the difference? He’ll see another secret his mother kept. Another decision I made without consulting him. He’s already angry about the years I was gone. This will—” I stop. Breathe. “This will break something between us, Merric. I know my son. He’ll feel betrayed.”
“Then we tell him together. We sit him down, both of us, and we tell him the truth. All of it. Why you kept the secret, why I wasn’t there. Let him be angry. Let him yell. But let him know.”
I can feel his sincerity. He means this. He wants to be in the room when it happens. He wants to share the weight of Cameron’s reaction instead of letting me carry it alone.
I don’t know how to respond to a man who wants to share the weight.
“Give me a day,” I say. “Let Bern leave. Let the dust settle. Then we’ll talk about how to tell him.”
Merric studies me. I can feel him deciding whether to push.
“A day,” he says. “Then we stop putting it off.”
“A day.”
He nods. Turns to go. Stops.
“For what it’s worth,” he says, without looking back, “you’re not going to lose him. He loves you. That doesn’t go away because the truth is complicated.”
He walks toward the barn. I stand on the path and watch him go, fighting the ache in my chest that I’m running out of strength to resist.
The afternoon is worse.
Bern’s aide interviews Ravenclaw wolves. Casual conversations that feel like depositions. Bern himself spends an hour with Greta, which worries me more than anything else, because Greta is the repository of everything Ravenclaw, and Bern knows exactly what questions to ask an elder.
Cameron stays upstairs. I check on him once early in the afternoon—he’s sitting on his bed with the window open, watching the yard with that unblinking fixation that means he’s processing more than he’s showing. He nods when I ask if he’s okay. Doesn’t say more. I leave him to it.
The second time I go up, the light has changed. Late afternoon, the sun dropping behind the western ridge, throwing long shadows across the yard below his window. The window where he’s been sitting all day. The window that overlooks the gate to the yard.
I don’t think about that. I should, but I don’t.
Cameron is sitting on his bed with his back against the headboard and his knees drawn up. His face is different from normal. Set into something hard and expressionless.
“Hey,” I say. “You should come down. Eat something.”
“Sit down, Ma.”
The tone stops me. Not angry. Not upset. Controlled in a way that doesn’t sound like my seventeen-year-old son. It sounds like me.
I sit in the chair by the door.
Cameron looks at his hands. Turns them over. Looks back up.
“That man. Bern.” His voice is level. Measured. “He knew my father.”
My chest tightens. “What makes you say that?”
“The way he looked at me. Checking something. Comparing.” Cameron’s eyes find mine and hold. “Like I reminded him of someone.”
He waits. When I don’t respond, the silence stretches between us, and it feels heavy.
“Who do you think I remind him of, Ma?” he presses.
“Nobody. You’re probably imagining things, Cam,” I lie. And I hate myself, because I know this is a chance to tell him. An open door. I should walk through it. Everything in me knows I should walk through it. Merric’s voice on the path three hours ago:What comes next is we tell Cameron.
