The Two Extra Seats
He had told his mother in the second week of March.
He had told nobody else.
“I was going to tell you,” he said.
“I want you to understand — every single week I was going to tell you.
And then I’d get home and you’d be doing something ordinary and I couldn’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“Because of June,” he said, and it was the first time he had said her name out loud in probably two years.
“Because how do I walk in here and say, I have a son.