It Was Never a Gift

“You were right, Grandmother,” she whispered.

“It was never a gift.

It was a key.

And the key opened the door.”

Finn pressed his small hand flat against the cool stone and looked up at his mother with a wide, uncomplicated smile.

Her mind went back, for a moment, to that hospital room — the folder thrown across her blanket, the yellow signature line, her mother pronouncing the baby fatherless, her father swearing he would never hold his own grandson.