My Mother Fed the Man Behind Our House for Twenty Years—After Her Funeral, I Found Out He Was Family

“You don’t need to do that,” I called from the porch.

He stopped with a birch log in his hands.

“It’s what I do in the mornings.

Your mother said the steps got slick when the wood was lying loose.”

“My mother isn’t here now.”

It came out sharper than I meant it to.

He lowered the log, and I watched grief settle into the hollows under his cheekbones.

“I know that,” he said.