He replaced the empty hiding stone anThe last voices from the house had faded. Light still shone through a single upstairs window, while the garden lay in darkness.d led me to storage. Mom waited awake on a narrow bed in last Christmas’s cardigan, a battery lamp on a crate between the mattresses. At the sight of me, she covered her mouth.Only Mom called me Gabriel now; hearing it revealed her fear. I hugged her, and she held me as she’d done when seventeen-year-old me left Carmona for college, then drew away.
“You weren’t supposed to come.”
“You told me not to.”
“I know.”
“Almost four months,” he answered. Nearly four months. Every first Monday I’d sent money and every Sunday we’d talked about tomatoes, a neighbor’s dog, Dad’s shoulder, the church fundraiser and a faulty faucet. Not once had Mom mentioned their bed behind the shed.
“Why didn’t
