“I can’t believe she knew,” Lucas said. “She knew he was Colin. She sent him to us.”

It felt as if something had changed inexorably. Something was...decided. I felt it in the air, as inevitable as weather.

“Wait, wait,” I said, holding up my hands, as if that action could suddenly turn back time. They waited patiently for me to go on but I wasn’t sure what I could possibly say. I felt a terrible rushing, my blood, my breath, my circulatory system on overdrive. A shift had taken place, and I had no power now. I clapped my hands together just to feel in control of something, one small action, one small noise.

“So—what?” I said to Cole. “Now you just live here. You’re part of the family. I mean, don’t you have a life somewhere else? Don’t you have to work at some point?”

“He doesn’t have to work,” Lucas said. “We have plenty of money.”

“We don’t have plenty of money.”

“But enough,” Lucas said.

I shook my head. The house was paid off now, but between taxes and insurance and repairs, there wasn’t much extra.

“He’s going to help us take care of the house,” Lucas said, as if he’d read my mind. He was quietly crying, his cheeks wet. I felt for one vertiginous moment that I was occupying the same space as him, existing inside his body, feeling his chest bursting with emotion, the great swelling sadness, desire like a tidal pull. “The shingles, the side porch, the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom, the foundation. We probably should have done more to keep it in good shape all these years...”

“We did our best.”

“But now Cole is here to help us. We’re going to get a home equity loan. It’s where you—”

“I know what a home equity loan is,” I said, stiffening. “It’s basically turning the house over to the bank. I mean, at least now we have the house. That’s the one thing we have, whatever else happens. And anyway, there’s no way we can afford it.”

“But, see, if we go in on it with Cole...”

“Like put his name on the loan? Are you kidding me?” I looked at Cole, where he sat impassive. “If his name goes on the mortgage, then he would own part of the house. You see?”

“Well, in a way? He has a right to it. They bought it for all of us.”

Suddenly I was crying, too, my face damp, my nose running. They were tears of anger, the tears of the powerless. It had something to do with my mother loving another boy, a stranger. The old fears. She was so desperate to love someone who wasn’t us, even a ghost was better than her imperfect living children.