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“Mom,” one said. The other noticed me. “Who is this?”
If my mother had a heart, this was where she could have redeemed herself.
“No one. He was just leaving.” Her eyes begged me not to say more.
And that was all the confirmation I needed. “Yeah, my mistake. I’m leaving.”
I turned and walked away, scrubbing a hand down my face as I heard her hustling her sons back into the house. I might have shed a tear. If I did, I wiped it away without acknowledgement. She didn’t deserve any piece of me.
“Grant.”
The voice was higher than mine, but it wasn’t my mother’s. The wordsno onerang in my mind like bells. A sound I would never forget. Though I’d almost reached the gate, I turned around and waited for the two boys who approached.
“How do you know my name? Did she tell you?”
They were quite identical, and I didn’t know which was which. I did know their names. Alexander and Andrew.
One shook his head while the other spoke. “No, but we knew who you were.”
“How?”
It couldn’t have been her, as she denied me much like Peter had of Jesus—not that I was religious. Some things just stuck with you.
“Dad. He thought we should know we had an older brother,” the other said, sounding just like his brother.
I nodded. So maybe the guy wasn’t a total prick.
“You didn’t reach out,” I said.
It wasn’t supposed to be an accusation, but it came out that way. They were teenagers. I couldn’t blame them for the sins of our mother.
“We only knew you by Grant,” the first said.
“We didn’t know your last name,” said the second.
“There are a lot of Grants in Maryland.” The first spoke as they traded sentences as if only one was speaking.
“You knew I was in Maryland?” I asked.
The second answered, “We knew Mom lived there before she divorced.”
“It was a guess,” the first said.
My head was spinning. “Wait, which one of you is Alexander?”
The first looked as shocked as I felt when they’d said my name. “Alex is me,” he said, pointing at himself.
The second with a finger aimed at his chest said, “I’m Andrew.”
I wasn’t sure what to do other than hold out a hand. But both of my brothers came in for a hug.
“You should stay,” Andrew said.
I only knew that because they hadn’t moved.
“Your mother wouldn’t like that,” I said.
“Mom won’t know,” Alex said.
