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Mom shuts the door behind me and looks at the envelope in my hand.
“You read it?”
“Some of it.”
All of it. Several times.
She gives me the look she’s used since I was nine and tried to convince her that licking the spoon was not the same as eating cookie dough.
I toss the envelope onto the coffee table. “Fine. I read it.”
She nods once, like she expected that and is disappointed anyway.
“You want coffee?”
“No.”
“I’m having coffee.”
“No shit.”
“Watch it.”
I follow her into the kitchen because arguing in the living room feels too formal.
The kitchen is small and always spotless. Magnets line up on the refrigerator in straight rows. No drawings or pictures. No souvenir nonsense except one magnet from Holiday World I bought her when I was sixteen because I forgot Mother’s Day and panicked at a gift shop.
Mom pours herself coffee and sets a mug in front of me anyway.
She sits at the table. I stay standing.
“Sit down, Clint.”
“I’m good.”
“You’re six-foot-three and I’m not. So sit.”
For a few seconds, neither of us talks.
The refrigerator hums. Somewhere outside, a lawn mower starts up, then chokes off. Mom wraps both hands around her mug but doesn’t drink.
I look at her across the table and try to match this woman with the letter. Linda. Renny wrote her name like it hurt him.
Linda knew who I was before I did, he wrote.
I didn’t understand that line. I’m not sure I want to.
“So,” I say.
Mom’s mouth tightens. “So.”
“This is the part where you explain why a dead gay millionaire is writing letters about me.”
Her eyes flash.
“His name was Henry Benton.”
“Renny.”
