We sat in silence.
Then I remembered something.
“Lucas.”
“Hmm?”
“You said there were six tapes.”
“Yes.”
“What was on the other five?”
His expression changed.
That was enough.
“Lucas?”
“Mostly your mother’s memories.”
“Mostly?”
“She talks about you. Your father. Her childhood.”
“And?”
He set down his coffee.
“She talks about me.”
There it was again.
The mystery beneath the mystery.
“What does she say?”
“Not enough.”
“Tell me.”
He hesitated.
“She says she held me before my parents did.”
I looked toward the photograph.
“Why?”
“She doesn’t explain.”
“What else?”
“She apologizes.”
“To you?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“That’s the problem.”
Lucas took out his phone and found something.
Then he read from a note he’d made.
“She says, ‘Lucas was innocent. They were all innocent. I told myself the child would be loved, and he was. But love does not make a lie harmless.’”
