So what she actually does comes as a huge surprise. She pulls up a chair, takes my hands, and says, “Samuel, I’ve loved you ever since you were born. Sometimes you’re a stranger to me. You seem peculiar and that feeling has only intensified now that you’re a teenager, but I love you.” Tears are running down her face. “Whatever you’ve done, I guess you must have had good reasons for doing it.”

I swallow hard. How long has it been since we last held hands? Not since I was really small, I reckon.

“Samuel. I’d like you to tell me, right now, what drove you to . . .”—she gropes for words to describe my faking excuse notes and counterfeiting her signature—“go to such great lengths to play truant and even skip the tests.” She waits, still holding my hands, and her kindness and her concern overwhelm and envelop me. “Are you scared of someone at school? Are you being bullied? Or—”

“What?” I’m genuinely stunned. “No!”

She lets out a cry of relief, whereas I am overcome with shame and appalling guilt. Not because I lied, but because I dared to imagine that my mother didn’t really love me. Not as I loved her. Not to the point where she could never have lived without me. And because I didn’t trust her to care for me.

“Pre-exam stress?” Steve asks, only making things worse.

I shake my head. “I was with my dad,” I confess.

“Oh,” is all my mother says. She slumps back against the arm of her chair. One of her hands releases mine, but she immediately puts it back again.

More ticking from the clock on the oven.

The whoosh of the boiler. The buzz of the fridge. The drip and puff of the coffee machine.

Malcolm standing wide-eyed in the doorway, staring at us.

The scent of Steve’s aftershave.

My mother’s eyes gazing at me, blinking with the colors of distress, anger, pain, and helplessness.

We hold each other’s gaze and for the first time it is as if we’re really speaking openly with each other—all without uttering a sound. Our muteness says everything there is to say. I realize I’ve hurt her, not by loving my father but because I’ve gone behind her back. She offers me a glimpse of her anger, but she bottles it up. Her fingers clasp mine even more tightly, as if she can barely stop herself from yelling or weeping, but she keeps her emotions in check. For my sake and hers.

Abruptly my mother draws herself upright, and her breathing settles. She looks at me and gives a faint smile that contains sadness and pain, resignation and tenderness.