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Momma arrives while I’m in the kitchen, pulling together breakfast for them. I can tell the instant that she’s arrived because the raucous, overlapping French conversations peter to almost a complete stop. I put the plates out and turn to her. “We’re doing omelets. Do you want one?”

She scowls in obvious disapproval. “No. I’ve eaten.”

I glance into the living room. “April and Daddy here?”

“No, they’re at the motel. I came to talk to you. There are some things that need to be said.”

“Fine.” I gesture in front of me, like, Go on.

“I need to get some air. Let’s go outside.”

Bastien leans against the table. He smiles at me, a soft, serene smile, and puts his hand on my arm.

“Okay, Momma,” I say. “Let’s go to the patio.”

She leads us onto the enclosed patio behind the kitchen. It’s a small concrete pad enclosed by a high privacy fence. Michel has set out some dining room chairs. Momma sinks onto one and lights a cigarette. She looks into the dining room.

“It’s a zoo in there,” she says after a drag.

“Yes, ma’am.” I pull up the other chair and sit.

“They’re good people. A little loud, but I reckon they’re the family you always wanted.” She looks away, scowling at a blade of grass that’s found its way through a crack in the cement. There is a beat of silence between us. “I suppose we’ll have to get him a tuxedo for Thursday.”

“Lilies!” I hear from the dining room. This is met with a roar of approval from the other people.

Momma shakes her head and finally squares her shoulders and looks at me. “I knowed about you since you was maybe ten. I hoped maybe you’d grow out of it, but you didn’t. So now I got me a son-in-law. He’ll do, I suppose.” She wrinkles her nose and pulls a fleck of tobacco off her tongue. “He ain’t the husband I woulda picked for you, but you always did know your own mind. From the time you first came with that garbage bag.”

Twelve years, and she has never once said the word gay. She isn’t saying it now.

“I know you don’t approve.”

“Ain’t about what I like or don’t like.” She takes a drag on her cigarette. “The world is a mean place. I was hard on you because the world breaks soft people. You need to be tough.”

“The moment April was born you didn’t even remember I was there.”

“That wasn’t me. That was your daddy. Men and their daughters. April hung the moon from the first breath she took on this earth for him.”

“I wish I knew you wanted me.”

She peers at me. “Son, we kept you. There was a lot more kids we coulda took. Younger ones, too. Ones that wouldn’t even remember their mamas, but we kept you, because you were a good boy. I ain’t never been one to wear my heart on my sleeve, but you shoulda knowed because we kept you. You’re a Nichols, too. Even if you’re too prideful to take our name.”

“Well, it’s too late now.”

Momma nods. “She found you while you was out in Japan.”

“What?”

“Well, she found where you used to be. Some old social media account you’d left open. She knocked on our door looking for you.”

The anger wars with the surprise and hurt. I don’t know which one hits me first. It’s a wave of ugliness. “And you didn’t tell me? How long ago was this?”

“Three years ago, I think.”

I stare at her in silence. The only reason I don’t tell her to get out and not come back is because she has some news of my mother, and I want that more than I want to hate her.

“She died two weeks ago,” she says.

“Three years, and you—”