“I knew about the illness. I did not know exactly what happened after she left.”
“She never contacted you again?”
“No. She would not even tell me where she was going. She only asked me to keep the letter and watch over her son.”
“You stood beside me for 18 years while I hated her.”
Mrs. Johnson’s face collapsed with guilt.
“I watched you raise Leo, and every year I questioned whether keeping my promise was the right thing to do.”
I could barely process the fact that the answer to every question that had haunted me had been living across the hall.
Mrs. Johnson continued.
“I remained close because I loved Leo. But I also stayed because I felt ashamed. Helping you was the only way I knew to make up for my silence.”
“What gave either of you the right to decide what I could handle?”
“Nothing,” she whispered. “I had no right.”
Leo finally spoke.
“So she left right after I was born? Did she even know my name?”
The question silenced the room.
“Yes,” I told him. “She chose your name with me.”
“Did she ever hold me?”
I remembered Goldi standing above his bassinet in the darkness, her hand hovering over him.
“Yes,” I said. “She held you when you were born.”
“So she didn’t leave because I have Down syndrome?”
“No,” I replied. “I believed that too, but I was wrong.”
My voice broke.
“She was right about one thing. I would have spent all my time trying to save her. I don’t know how I would have balanced that while taking care of you.”
Leo’s eyes filled with tears.
“Would you have wanted her to stay?”
“Yes,” I said. “I think we both would have.”
“Then why didn’t she let you decide?”
I had no answer.
Leo stood and walked away from the table.
I followed him into the hallway.
“I always thought my mother abandoned me and you just didn’t want me to know,” he said.
“I was trying to protect you. I never wanted you to believe you were unloved.”
“But you believed she left because of me?”
“Yes.”
“And you hated her for 18 years?”
“Yes.”
He wiped his face with frustration.
“I feel happy that she loved me. Does that make me a bad person?”
“No.”
“I’m angry too.”
“So am I.”
