I thought about it for a long time before I answered.
“Because the thing that nearly destroyed us wasn’t his infertility,” I said finally. “It wasn’t even the red hair. It was the secret. It was eleven years of shame that he was taught to hide, by a mother who was taught to hide hers, by a man who ran away from a sick kid in a hospital bed. That shame got passed down like an old coat. Nobody ever took it off. They just kept handing it to the next person.”
“And now?”
“And now he’s taking it off,” I said. “Piece by piece. In front of me. Where I can see it. That’s the only reason I’m still there. Not because he said sorry. Lots of people say sorry. Because he finally stopped hiding.”
Rachel stirred her iced tea for a long time.
“And if he ever hides something from you again?”
“Then I’ll leave,” I said simply. “And he knows it. That’s part of the deal too.”
Evelyn is asleep upstairs as I write this. She’s two now. Her hair never did turn brown. It’s a wild riot of copper curls that she refuses to let anyone brush, and when the sun hits it in the backyard, it practically glows.
Last week, she found the green leather photo album on the bottom shelf of the bookcase. She sat on the living room rug and flipped through the pages with her sticky fingers until she found the faded color photo of Copper Tom holding my mother at the picnic table.
She pointed at the baby’s hair. Then she pointed at her own head.
“Me!” she said. “Me, Mama!”
“That’s right, baby,” I said. “That’s where you got it.”
