Pillows and blankets have been dashed to the floor in a frenzy as he rips open the floral curtains, yanks them shut again where they dance and sway before falling still, pulls open empty drawers, grunts, and leaves them hanging there like gaping, hungry mouths.

Elizabeth folds her arms and raises her eyebrows at the scene of destruction. “Looking for something?”

Don whirls around like a feral cat startled by human presence, his body taut and lithe and ready to pounce. “What are you playing at?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

His arms rise and fall to encompass the room. “There’s someone coughing in here!” His eyes dart from me to Elizabeth, daring us to reveal our secrets.

A sad uncertainty comes over Elizabeth; her stance is no longer wry and charming but worried, defeated. “If you’re going to go around tearing up my mother’s house, maybe you shouldn’t be here.”

He steps closer, towering over her. He shaved yesterday, I believe, but stubble is again growing over his cheeks, roughening his hard-eyed face. “Shouldn’t be here?”

I think this is the moment—in the slump of her shoulders and the way she picks at her cuticles—when I realize that Elizabeth has begun to regret her decision to admit Donovan into the house. It is not like it was when it was just the three of us; having him here is like inviting in an unpredictable stranger. At least that is how it feels to me; it must be so much different for Elizabeth, since this is the man she has lived with for years, her partner. And yet she shies away from him as he passes us out into the hallway, shies away from his touch as if afraid he will turn those ravaging hands tearing up the room onto her and tear her up, too.

As we straightened up the room after Donovan destroyed it, I found a curious artifact—a letter wedged deep in the bottommost crevices of a little-used drawer, yellowed and curled at the edges. I am surprised the paper has lasted this long, but a mother’s love, I suppose, can last an eternity. I will add this to my records.

To my dearest,

Forgive me, my son, for you will not see me again. Yet I know you will do well without me. You have your whole life ahead, and all the world is open to you. You are going to have opportunities I could never have imagined, and I am so glad for this even though it brings me pain. I know your father will look after you well, for he loves you, and you are nearly a man, ready to look after your own self. While I do not believe any child ever truly stops needing his mother, you will do better without me. I know it. We can only live a half-life, each of us, in our present circumstances. I can never truly be your mother; you can never fully be free of where you come from. But once I am gone, you will be. You will be able to be a white man, and I do not know any greater freedom than that.