“But she told me she moved to Atlanta to go to college.”

“Oh, that may have been somewhere in the back of her mind, but the real reason was Michael. He had some kind of hold on her, that’s for sure. He was also the reason she didn’t come back here to visit.”

“How so?”

“Well, her mom and dad-your grandparents-they just couldn’t forgive her for running off that way. They saw Michael for what he was and said that if she didn’t come home right away, she wasn’t welcome here anymore. They were from the old school, as stubborn as can be, and your mom was just the same. It was like a couple of bulls staring at each other, waiting for the other one to give in. But neither of them ever did, even after Michael went by the wayside for someone else.”

“My father?”

Judy shook her head. “No . . . someone else-your father came along after I lost contact with her.”

“So you didn’t know him at all?”

“No. But I do remember your grandparents heading off to the wedding and being a little hurt that your mother hadn’t sent me an invitation. Not that I could have gone, of course. I was married by then, and like a lot of young couples, my husband and I were struggling financially, and with the new baby-well, it just would have been impossible to make it.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

Judy set her glass of tea on the table. “Nothing to be sorry for. It wasn’t you, and in some way, it wasn’t even your mom anymore-or at least the one I used to know. Your father came from a very respectable family in Atlanta, and by that point in her life, I think your mom was a little embarrassed about where she’d come from. Not that your father minded, obviously, since he married her. But I remember that your grandparents didn’t say much after they returned from the wedding. I think they were a little embarrassed, too, even though they shouldn’t have been. They were great people, but I think they knew they didn’t fit into their daughter’s world anymore, even after your father passed away.”

“That’s terrible.”

“It’s sad, but like I said, it went both ways. They were stubborn, your mom was stubborn. And little by little, they sort of drifted apart.”

“I knew Mom wasn’t close to her parents, but she never told me any of this.”

“No, I wouldn’t expect that she did. But please don’t think poorly of your mother. I certainly don’t. She was always so full of life, so passionate-she was exciting to be around. And she had the heart of an angel, she really did. She was as sweet a person as I ever knew.”

Judy turned to face her. “I see a lot of her in you.”

Denise tried to digest this new information about her mother as Judy took another sip of her tea. Then, as if knowing she’d said too much, Judy added, “But listen to me, droning on like some senile old woman. You must think I’m two steps from an old folks’ home. Let’s talk about you for a while.”

“Me? There’s not much to tell.”

“Then why not start with the obvious? Why did you move to Edenton?”

Denise watched Kyle playing with his trucks, wondering what he was thinking.

“There’s a couple of reasons.”

Judy leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “Man trouble? Some psycho stalker like you see on America’s Most Wanted?”

Denise giggled. “No, nothing that dramatic.” She stopped, her brow furrowing slightly.

“If it’s too personal, you don’t have to tell me. It’s none of my business anyway.”

Denise shook her head. “I don’t mind talking about it-it’s just tough to know where to start.” Judy stayed silent, and Denise sighed, collecting her thoughts. “I guess mainly it has to do with Kyle. I think I told you he has trouble speaking, right?”

Judy nodded.

“Did I tell you why?”

“No.”

Denise looked in Kyle’s direction. “Well, right now they say he has an auditory processing problem, specifically expressive and receptive language delay. Basically, it means that for some reason-no one knows why-understanding language and learning to speak is hard for him. I guess the best analogy is that it’s like dyslexia, only instead of processing visual signals, it has to do with processing sounds. For some reason, the sounds seem to get all mixed up-it’s like he’s hearing Chinese one second, German the next, nonsense chatter after that. Whether the problem’s in the connection between the ear and the brain or within the brain itself no one knows. But in the beginning, they weren’t sure how to diagnose him, and, well . . .”

Denise ran her hand through her hair and faced Judy again. “Are you sure you want to hear all of this? It’s kind of a long story.”

Judy reached over and patted Denise on the knee. “Only if you feel like telling me.”

Judy’s earnest expression suddenly reminded Denise of her mother. Strangely, it felt good to tell her about it, and she hesitated only briefly before going on.

“Well, at first the doctors thought he was deaf. I spent weeks taking Kyle to appointments with audiologists and ENTs-you know, ear, nose, and throat specialists-before they found out that he could hear. Then, they thought he was autistic. That diagnosis lasted for about a year-probably the most stressful year of my life. After that came PDD, or pervasive development disorder, which is sort of like autism, only less severe. That too lasted a few months until they’d run more tests on him. Then, they said he was retarded, with ADD-attention deficit disorder-thrown in for good measure. It wasn’t until maybe nine months ago that they finally settled on this diagnosis.”

“It must have been so hard on you. . . .”

“You can’t imagine how hard it was. They tell you something awful about your child, and you go through all these stages-disbelief, anger, grief, and finally acceptance. You learn everything you can about it-you research and read and talk to whoever you can-and just when you’re ready to confront it head-on, they change their minds and the whole thing starts all over again.”

“Where was the father during all of this?”

Denise shrugged, an almost guilty expression on her face. “The father wasn’t around. Suffice it to say, I hadn’t expected to get pregnant. Kyle was an ‘oops,’ if you know what I mean.”

She paused again, and the two of them watched Kyle in silence. Judy seemed neither surprised nor shocked by the revelation, nor did her expression register any judgment. Denise cleared her throat.

“After Kyle was born, I took a leave of absence from the school where I was teaching. My mom had died, and I wanted to spend the first year or so with the baby. But after all this started happening, I couldn’t go back to work. I was shuttling him all day long to doctors and evaluation centers and therapists until I finally came up with a therapy program that we could do at home. None of that left me with enough time for a full-time job. Working with Kyle is full-time. I’d inherited this house, but I couldn’t sell it, and eventually the money just ran out.”

She glanced at Judy, a rueful expression on her face.

“So I guess the short answer to your question is that I had to move here out of necessity, so that I could keep working with Kyle.”

When she finished, Judy stared at her before finally patting her on the knee again. “Pardon the expression, but you’re a helluva mother. Not many people would make those kinds of sacrifices.”

Denise watched her son play in the dirt. “I just want him to get better.”

“From what you’ve told me, he sounds like he already has.” She let that sink in before leaning back in her chair and continuing. “You know, I remember watching Kyle when you were using the computer in the library, but never once did the thought occur to me that he was having any problems at all. He seemed like every other little boy there, except that he was probably better behaved.”

“But he still has trouble speaking.”

“So did Einstein and Teller, but they turned out to be the greatest physicists in history.”