“Darling!” Her face brightened—a cloud unveiling the sun. “Come in,” she said, smiling. “Give your mom a hug.” I stepped inside and we embraced. At sixty-five, she seemed to grow smaller every time I visited. Her hair was turning white, but she wore it long, as she always had, pulled back in a ponytail. Though too big for her now, a green dress dotted with white flowers hung upon her feeble frame like outdated wallpaper.

“You look good,” she said, inspecting my waist. “I see you lost that spare tire.” Smiling, she pinched my stomach. She had a paralyzing fear I’d suddenly gain six hundred pounds and become trapped in my house. It was hell being around her if I was the slightest bit overweight. “I told you it wouldn’t take much to lose those love handles. They’re really not attractive, you know. That’s what happens when you spend all your time inside, writing.”

“The yard doesn’t look good, Mom,” I said, walking into the living room and sitting down on the sofa. She walked to the television and turned the volume all the way down. “Is that lawn service not coming anymore?”

“I fired them,” she said, blocking the screen, hands on her hips. “They charged too much.”

“You weren’t paying for it.”

“I don’t need your help,” she said. “And I’m not gonna argue with you about it. I wrote a check to you for the money you gave me. Remind me to give it to you before you leave.”

“I won’t take it.”

“Then the money will go to waste.”

“But the yard looks terrible. It needs to be—”

“That grass is gonna turn brown and die anyway. No need to make a fuss about it now.”

I sighed and leaned back against the dusty, sunken sofa as my mother disappeared into the kitchen. The house smelled of must, aged wood, and tarnished silverware. Above the brick fireplace hung a family portrait that had been taken the summer after Orson and I graduated from high school. The picture was sixteen years old, and it showed. The background had reddened, and our faces looked more pink than flesh-colored.

I remembered the day distinctly. Orson and I had fought about who would wear Dad’s brown suit. We’d both become fixated on it, so Mom had flipped a dime, and I won. Furious, Orson had refused to have his picture taken, so Mom and I went alone to the photographer’s studio. I wore my father’s brown suit, and she wore a purple dress, black now in the discolored photograph. It was eerie to look at my mother and myself standing there alone, with the plain red background behind us, half a family. Sixteen years later, nothing has changed.

She came back into the living room from the kitchen, carrying a glass of sweet tea.

“Here you are, darling,” she said, handing me the cold, sweaty glass. I took a sip, savoring her ability to brew the best tea I’d ever tasted. It held the perfect sweetness—not bitter, not weak, and the color was transparent mahogany. She sat down in her rocking chair and pulled a quilt over her skinny legs, the wormy veins hidden by fleshy panty hose.

“Why haven’t you come in four months?” she asked.

“I’ve been busy, Mom,” I said, setting the tea down on a glass coffee table in front of the couch. “I had the book tour and other stuff, so I haven’t been back in North Carolina that long.”

“Well, it hurts my feelings that my son won’t take time out of his high-and-mighty schedule to come visit his mother.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really feel bad.”

“You should be more considerate.”

“I will. I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that,” she snapped. “I forgive you.” Then turning back to the television, she said, “I bought your book.”

“You didn’t have to buy it, Mom. I have thirty copies at home. I could’ve brought one.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You read it?”

She frowned, and I knew the answer. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings,” she said, “but it’s just like your other ones. I didn’t even reach the end of the first chapter before I put it down. You know I can’t stand profanity. And that Sizzle was just horrible. I’m not gonna read about a man going around setting people on fire. I don’t know how you write it. People probably think I abused you.”

“Mom, I—”

“I know you write what sells, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m gonna like it. I just wish you’d write something nice for a change.”

“Like what? What would you like for me to write?”

“A love story, Andrew. Something with a happy ending. People read love stories, too, you know.”

I laughed out loud and lifted up the glass. “So you think I should switch to romance? My fans would love that, let me tell you.”

“Now you’re just being ugly,” she said as I sipped the tea. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Mocking your own mother.”

“I’m not mocking you, Mom. I think you’re hilarious.”

She frowned again and looked back at the television. Though strong-willed and feisty, my mother was excruciatingly sensitive beneath her fussy exterior.

“Have you been to Dad’s grave yet?” she asked after a moment.

“No. I wanted to go with you.”

“There were flowers by the headstone this morning. A beautiful arrangement. It looked fresh. You sure you didn’t—”

“Mom, I think I’d know if I laid flowers on Dad’s grave this morning.”

Her short-term memory was wilting. She’d probably taken the flowers there yesterday.

“Well, I was there this morning,” she said. “Before it clouded up. Sat there for about an hour, talking to him. He’s got a nice spot under that magnolia.”

“Yes, he does.”

Staring into the olive shag carpet beneath my feet, at the sloped dining room table next to the kitchen, and that first door in the hallway leading down into the basement, I sensed the four of us moving through this dead space, this antiquated haunt—felt my father and Orson as strongly as I did my mother, sitting in the flesh before me. Strangely enough, it was the smell of burned toast that moved me. My mother loved scorched bread, and though the scent of her singed breakfast was now a few hours old, it made this deteriorating house my home, and me her little boy again, for three inexorable seconds.

“Mom,” I began, and I almost said his name. Orson was on the tip of my tongue. I wanted her to remind me that we’d been carefree children once, kids who’d played.

She looked up from the muted television.

But I didn’t ask. She’d driven him from her mind. When I’d made the mistake of talking about him before, she had instantly shut down. It crushed her that he’d left, that thirteen years ago Orson had severed all ties from our family. Initially, she dealt with that pain by denying he’d ever been her son. Now, years later, that he’d ever been born.

“Never mind,” I said, and she turned back to the game show. So I found a memory for myself. Orson and I are eleven, alone in the woods. It’s summertime, the trees laden with leaves. We find a tattered canvas tent, damp and mildewed, but we love it. Brushing out the leaves from inside, we transform it into our secret fort, playing there every day, even in the rain. Since we never tell any of the neighborhood kids, it’s ours alone, and we sneak out of the house at night on several occasions and camp there with our flashlights and sleeping bags, hunting fireflies until dawn. Then, running home, we climb into bed before Mom or Dad wakes up. They never catch us, and by summer’s end, we have a jelly jar full of prisoners—a luciferin night-light on the toy chest between our beds.

Mom and I sat watching the greedy contestants until noon. I kept the memory to myself.

“Andrew,” she said when the show had ended, “is it still cold outside?”

“It’s cool,” I said, “and a little breezy.”

“Would you take a walk with me? The leaves are just beautiful.”

“I’d love to.”

While she went to her bedroom for an overcoat, I stood and walked through the dining room to the back door. I opened it and stepped onto the back porch, its green paint flaking off everywhere, the boards slick with paint chips.