Page 57 of Caged Bird

“You have a son, Fawn?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

I nodded and smiled at her reassuringly. “I do. And you have a grandson.”

She glanced over at Zane. “You had a baby you didn’t tell me about?”

The smile fell off my face.

Zane reached for his mother’s free hand. “He’s not mine, Mom. He’s…”

I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to say his brother’s name. I didn’t want to either.

Margaret snatched her hand back, recoiling like she’d been bitten by a snake. She shook her head, her tears spilling down her weathered cheeks when she looked at me. “No. Not Eddie. Not Eddie.”

A tiny part of me was hurt, but a bigger part of me knew she was scared. And that her words came from a place of fear. I took both her bony, frail arms in my hands. “He’s nothing like Eddie, Margaret. Nothing. I promise you. He’s sweet and kind and selfless. He wouldn’t even so much as kill a spider let alone—” I pressed my lips together, not wanting to say any more. Otis didn’t need to hear about all the things his father felt no remorse over killing.

Margaret’s trembling subsided, just a little. She gazed down at Otis. “Hello.”

Like he was starved for kindness from a stranger, or maybe he recognized a soul like his, Otis went from hiding behind me to beaming at the old lady. “Hi! Do you want to play trucks with me? Or read a story? Or draw?”

Margaret’s eyes lit up. “You like to draw?”

Otis nodded, so his too-long hair fell in his eyes and he had to push it back with his hands. “I do! I can draw dragons and dinosaurs and trucks and cars, and one day I drew a motorcycle, but it was really hard and it wasn’t very good.” His button nose screwed up in disgust over his failed art project.

“I’m sure it was wonderful,” Margaret told him, voice full of the sort of blind surety one only heard from a proud grandparent.

“Your grandma draws too,” Zane told him with a grin.

Margaret waved him away. “Stop it. I do not. I’m terrible.”

Otis shook his head and parroted Margaret’s words back at her. “I’m sure it was wonderful.”

I could practically see a small part of Margaret’s heart mending, right there in the middle of my kitchen.

Otis took her hand and pulled on it. “Come upstairs to my bedroom. I’ll show you all my drawings.”

Margaret got up without hesitation and followed him, completely ignoring both my and Zane’s requests for her to sit back down and eat and drink and let us tend to her injuries.

Clearly being a grandmother was more important.

I couldn’t blame her.

Otis was the only way I’d gotten through most days for the past five years. I couldn’t take that ray of sunshine away from Margaret either.

Zane sat in the seat his mom had vacated. But instead of complete and utter defeat in his expression, like I’d expected, there was something more hopeful. Something almost peaceful.

I would have bet a thousand dollars my expression was much the same.

“I haven’t seen her that animated in years,” Zane said quietly. “That almost looked like…”

“Happiness?”

He nodded, scrubbing a hand over his face. “We lived a quiet life, you know? I just went to work. She stayed home, taking care of the house. I thought it could be enough…”

“But it wasn’t.”

He shook his head. “Though this is the worst situation of my life, parts of it are also somehow the happiest I’ve been.” He buried his face in his hands. “How fucked up is that? I’m a goddamn fucking prisoner here, and yet, I don’t want to leave.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “I won’t leave, Fawn. Not without you. Even if he lets me.”

The flood of relief took me by surprise. I’d been on my own for so long. And then I’d had the added weight of not only keeping myself alive, but Otis too.

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