My mother.
I stepped backward.
“No…”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“Travis…”
“No.”
My voice cracked.
“That’s impossible.”
She looked at me with tears forming in her eyes.
“I wanted to tell you sooner.”
“Why do you have that mark?”
She didn’t answer immediately.
And that silence terrified me more than any words could have.
Finally, she whispered:
“Because I am not the woman you think I am.”
My breathing stopped.
“What does that mean?”
She walked closer.
“Your mother never died the way you were told.”
The words hit me harder than anything I had ever experienced.
I stared at her.
My entire body went cold.
“My mother died when I was seven.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“No, Travis.”
A tear rolled down her cheek.
“She disappeared.”
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t speak.
For twenty two years, I had carried the memory of my mother’s funeral.
The empty feeling.
The unanswered questions.
The pain of growing up without her.
And now the woman standing in front of me was telling me everything I believed was a lie.
“How?”
My voice was barely a whisper.
“How can you be my mother?”
Eleanor reached into a drawer.
She pulled out an old photograph.
A photograph that looked worn from being held too many times.
She placed it in my hand.
I looked down.
And my heart stopped.
It was a picture of a young woman holding a little boy.
A little boy with messy hair and a missing front tooth.
Me.
Behind the photograph was a date.
And a name.
My name.
I looked back at Eleanor.
She was
