“This is why you’re here?” Aden’s brow wrinkled with unmistakable hurt and offense. I quickly saw the need to repair the situation, but before I could speak he stated what I should have realized before I brought my problem to him. “I was sick with worry,” he said. “You disappeared. Then I hear that you were released from prison and back at the tavern for two days. You didn’t even spare a thought for me, did you? I began to think you’d never come by.”

I felt a prickle of irritation. He could have come to me.

I wouldn’t have had such a thought even a few days ago. Instead I would have felt rightly accused. I would have felt the truth of it: I hadn’t thought about him, not at all, and he was so sincerely wounded that I would have assumed this must mean I had done something wrong. I would have rushed to apologize.

Which is in fact what I decided to do, because I would get nowhere with him otherwise.

“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

He softened. “I shouldn’t have waited,” he said. “I should have come to the tavern. I guess I was too proud.”

This threw me off-balance. His accusation had vanished so quickly once I had said what he wanted to hear. Did that mean that my annoyance had been unfair?

“I wanted you to want to see me,” he said, “first, before anyone else. I wish that you hadn’t come only because you needed my help.” He rubbed his mouth as though he had tasted something bitter. Once, his hand on my naked shoulder, gathering me to him as I lay with my head on his loud heart, he had told me that his mother had ruffled his hair when he saw her for the last time, her voice blithe, giving no clue that she planned to abandon him. She could have said good-bye, he said. It would have meant something to me.

Maybe she didn’t want you to guess or worry, I said, and didn’t take you because she didn’t want to risk your life with hers.

Maybe, he said.

“Aden,” I said now, “I’m glad to see you.” It wasn’t even a midnight lie. It became true the moment I said it. You understand me, he had once said, like no one does.

It is a pleasure to be told you understand someone best. It is as if you are the only one in the world who matters, as though you have a power that escapes everyone else. I was special—not because I was different, but because I was like him. I, too, longed for a mother.