“Is that for dinner?” I asked.
Mom folded a clean cloth over the pie.
“No, sweetheart. There’s vegetable soup on the stove.”
My smile disappeared.
“Then who is the pie for?”
She did not look at me.
“Dorian.”
The answer hurt more than it should have.
Maybe it was not really about the pie. Maybe it was about Dad being gone, Mom always being tired, and the empty chair at our table.
But I was eight. I did not know how to explain grief.
I only knew Dorian was receiving something I wanted.
“You made him a whole pie?”
“He hasn’t eaten properly in days.”
“Neither have we!”
Mom stopped wrapping the dish.
“Kendra.”
“Why does he always get the good food? He isn’t family.”
Her face changed.
“Never say that about Dorian again.”
She did not shout, but the sharpness in her voice frightened me.
Tears filled my eyes.
“You care more about him than me.”
Pain crossed her face. I waited for her to deny it, put the pie down, and pull me into her arms.
Instead, she closed her eyes for a moment.
Then she carried the pie outside.
I stood alone in the kitchen, crying so hard that my chest hurt.
From that day on, I hated Dorian with the complete, unreasonable hatred only a lonely child could manage.
Whenever Mom gave him food, I imagined something being taken from me.
When she bought him a warm coat from a secondhand store, I remembered the winter boots she said we could not afford.
When she helped him fill out forms at the kitchen table, I sat upstairs and refused to come down.
Dorian tried to be kind.
Once, he repaired the loose wheel on my bicycle while I was at school. I accused him of touching my things and pushed the bicycle into the garage without thanking him.
Another time, he carved a small wooden rabbit and left it on our porch.
I threw it into the weeds.
He saw me do it.
His face fell, but he did not become angry.
“You don’t have to like me,” he said. “I just thought you might want it.”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
He nodded.
After that, he stopped trying.
Dorian remained near the old shed for almost two years. Then, one morning, he was gone.
His blankets had disappeared. The metal sheet had been pulled down, and the ground where he slept was empty.
I expected Mom to be relieved.
Instead, she stood at the kitchen window for a long time.
“Where did he go?” I asked, pretending not to care.
“He found work in another town.”
“Good.”
Mom looked at me, but she said nothing.
The years that followed did not repair what had broken between us.
By high school, I had become skilled at avoiding serious conversations. Mom and I spoke about grades, chores, and what time I would be home. We did not speak about Dad. We never spoke about Dorian.
The moment I graduated, I moved three hours away.
At first, I came home for holidays. Then I began making excuses.
Work was busy.
The roads were bad.
I could not afford the trip.
Mom called every Sunday, but I sometimes let the phone ring until it stopped.
I told myself I was protecting my peace.
The truth was harder.
Part of me was still the little girl in the kitchen, watching her mother carry an apple pie to someone else.
Twenty years after Dorian first appeared behind our house, a hospital nurse called me at work.
My mother had suffered a severe stroke.
“You should come as soon as possible,” the nurse said.
I drove through the afternoon without stopping.
When I reached the hospital, Mom looked smaller than I remembered. Machines surrounded her bed, and one side of her face had gone still.
I sat beside her and took her hand.
