After a moment, she spins it around. It’s a young Mara. She looks like she can’t be much older than I am now. She’s at the beach buried in the sand. Toddler Siri’s holding a shovel and sitting pretzel-style next to Mara’s head, and I’m in the left foreground doing a split with my hands up, shovel in the air.

Siri gasps next to me.

I snort. “Oh my god. Wow.”

Mara puts it on the couch next to her and shakes out her hands before looking up at me. She slides off the couch and gets down on one knee.

“Mara, are you proposing to me? Because I’m not interested in you that way,” I say instinctively.

Her head falls forward, and I hear her laughing through what sound like tears. Are we all crying right now? I glance over at Siri to share a look with her. Of course there are streams flowing down her face. She’s like a faucet, that one.

“Don’t make me laugh, James. I want to say something.” Mara shakes her head, stretching out her mouth. “Okay, I’m not good at this. I’m sorry if I stumble or something.”

“Just say it, Mom,” Siri says.

Mara exhales. “Jamie … I was a coward letting you go that day fourteen years ago. It broke my heart when you said you didn’t want to live with me. I shouldn’t have let it affect me the way I did. You were a child, but it broke me.

“I didn’t act like an adult. I was still in my twenties and I was really stupid sometimes. I’m still really stupid sometimes. I didn’t know what to do. Your father had seen me having dinner with this other guy. We already were on rocky ground, and he had pictures … I thought if I put up any sort of fuss, he would be able to take both of you away. I didn’t have the willpower or the courage to deal with lawyers and the fighting, and I let you slip away from both of us. It’s not a good excuse. It’s not an excuse. But it’s the truth, and I hope someday you can forgive me.”

My jaw tightens. “I hope someday I can too.”

Siri stands up at this. She does a little sidestep as she tilts to the right. “Ma, we actually prepared something to say to you, if you could get back on the couch, please.”

Mara’s jaw pops open. “Of course, Siri.”