And since he’s someone I won’t see again after a short while, isn’t he the perfect person to talk to?

Plus, his back is to me. It’s always easier to open up when you don’t have the pressure of someone’s eyes on you.

My gaze lands on a mole on the back of his neck, exposed to the frigid air above his coat. His light-brown skin shouldn’t fit in this winter paradise, but somehow, it does.

“No, I don’t have siblings,” I say.

He doesn’t ask anything else, but his silence invites me to continue.

“My father had already left by the time I was born, and my mother was so busy with my grandpa when he got sick that I don’t think she ever thought of having more kids.”

“So it’s just you and your mom?”

“It was, yeah.”

“I’m so sorry,” he says in a soft voice, still facing forward.

I frown for a second before realizing how that sounded. Oh. He thinks she’s dead.

Hesitation lingers for a few moments, but in the end, for some reason, I don’t correct him. It’s not like the situation Mom and I are in now is much better than what he assumed. In fact, some days, I find myself thinking maybe it’d be less painful if she had in fact died. It’s a horrible, shame-inducing thought, but I can’t help it. If I had lost her—really lost her—when I was eighteen, then I could reminisce only on the nice moments we spent together and not on the hurt I feel every time we see each other. It’s not like we were ever that close, but we still shared good times. Now, though, the pain outweighs all of it.

I clear my throat. “What about you? Is Callie your only sibling?”

“Yeah.”

“You have a big age gap,” I say. Probably something like fifteen years, if I had to guess.

“My parents adopted her when I was seventeen. Mom had a niece in the Dominican Republic who got pregnant at sixteen and couldn’t keep her, so they took her in.”

“Wow. That’s something.” I can’t imagine having a seventeen-year-old kid, almost an adult, then starting the whole process all over again. “They seem like great people, your parents.”

He turns to me, emotion written all over his face. “The best.” His smile slowly fades, and I can tell where his mind has gone.

I never make any promises as an attorney. I can’t swear on my life that we will win a case. I would eventually have to break my word, so I’d rather not promise anything. But today, I allow myself to break that rule. Hand on his forearm, I say, “I’ll win that case for you. For them.”