Chapter 31 - The Empty Branch
Nico erased the word mother so many times that he tore the paper.
I found him at the kitchen table with an unfinished family tree, a blunt pencil, and an expression I recognized too well.
Anger trying to keep sadness from showing.
“What happened?”
“The assignment’s wrong.”
I pulled out the chair beside him.
The worksheet had a small box for each parent, with branches leading upward toward grandparents.
Nico had written my name on one side.
On the other, he had written Elena.
Then crossed it out.
Then Lena.
Then both.
Now there was a hole.
“We can ask for another sheet.”
“That won’t make more boxes.”
I looked at the page again.
“No,” I said. “It won’t.”
Across the room, Noah stopped pretending to read.
“Mine has three.”
I turned.
He held up his worksheet.
He had drawn an extra branch himself, squeezing Lena’s name between two printed lines.
“That works,” I said.
Nico shook his head.
“Ms. Ellis said it could be anybody important. But then why does it say mother instead of people?”
It was a reasonable question.
I did not have a particularly reasonable answer.
Lena came in carrying a basket of laundry.
“What are we arguing with?”
“Paper,” Noah said.
“An old enemy.”
She set down the basket and leaned over Nico’s shoulder.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then she went to the drawer and took out a clean sheet.
“What if you draw your own?”
“Can I?”
“Your teacher said the important people belong there. I think you can decide where they fit.”
Nico considered that.
Then he began again.
This tree grew sideways.
Caroline got a branch beside Elena. Daniel appeared beside Lena. Isabel occupied an enormous leaf near the bottom because Nico claimed she required more space than other people.
Marco was added after a brief debate about whether postcards counted as evidence of family membership.
By dinner, both trees covered half the table.
I thought the problem had been solved.
Then Noah asked a question while Lena was carrying plates to the sink.
“When school says you’re our parent, does that mean everywhere?”
She stopped walking.
“What do you mean?”
“Like on the papers from when we were born.”
I looked at Lena.
Then at my son.
“Those papers name Mommy Elena,” I said.
“Because Mama wasn’t there yet.”
“Right.”
He nodded.
Then frowned.
“But she’s here now.”
“Yes.”
“Is there another paper for that?”
Lena put the plates down carefully.
The room had become quiet enough that I could hear the refrigerator working.
“There can be,” I said.
Nico looked up from his dinner.
“Do we have one?”
I could have answered with explanations.
Marriage.
School permissions.
The arrangements our attorneys had made over the years.
Instead, I answered the question he had asked.
“No.”
He stared at me.
“Why not?”
May you like
Across the table, Lena lowered her eyes.
For the first time, I understood that we might not all have been waiting for the same person to speak.
