But I was learning fast. I would take him to my cousins’ houses, places where people knew about babies. He flourished. Those early years were sublime for me. I was heartbroken and heart-healed. The father always showed me respect. He never tried anything. I don’t know that he even saw me as a woman, just the child’s carer. Part of him came back to life, but not his heart. Perhaps that’s not fair. He loved the boy. Passionately. Fiercely. But it was a hard love, designed to protect him and prepare him to face a world that serves out pain in doses we cannot swallow. So, I showed the boy – I showed Kay, named for his mother – the bright patches of the world. I watched him bewitched by butterflies and books, glorying in the puppies born to the bitches owned by my relatives. I taught him to skim rocks on the water after he’d nearly drowned, his father forcing him to swim before he was ready. I showed him how speed and grace could defeat gravity – for a while. I held him when he was scared and I taught him to see God in all things made, just as his mother has shown me. Of course, we had everything money can buy. His father worked harder and became wealthy. Very wealthy. He was often away. Whatever was needed to make sure Kay would be the best at everything, we had. And Kay was the best. Gifted. ‘Lucky’. Blessed. Top of his class every year. Always ribbons on sports days. Popular, in that everyone wanted to be his friend. His father quietly gloried in every win, but it was never enough. Kay tried harder. It was never enough. Kay became harder. Not with me. I was the place he came to break. To cry. To be held. To ask why? To ask about his 45
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