Snow clicked against the window like fingernails. The house smelled like soup, old wood, and the kind of quiet I'd forgotten. My mother set a steaming bowl in front of me and the spoon in my hand like I was five and stubborn.
“Eat," she said.
“I'm sorry," I said instead.
“For what?" she asked, already knowing and already refusing the answer.
“For all of it." I swallowed the steam and the apology. “For bringing you back into this. For making today the way it was. For not seeing sooner."
She sat across from me, elbows on the table, chin in her palms, the posture of a woman who had told bedtime stories and verdicts in the same chair. “A maid switched a baby," she said gently. “A boy never learned that loyalty and love aren't synonyms. None of this started with you."
“I still chose him,"
