Kyle stood beside the stranger, helping her arrange the furniture.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
Kyle spun around.
“Alice. You’re home.”
The older woman studied me with a puzzled expression.
“Who is she?”
Before Kyle could answer, she pointed toward the hallway.
“Please be quiet. My little boy is sleeping.”
There was no little boy in our house.
Bedroom
Kyle asked me to speak with him outside, but I refused.
“I want an explanation now.”
The woman placed her hand on Mia’s bed.
“My husband built this room,” she murmured. “He won’t like strangers moving my furniture.”
Kyle gently touched her arm.
“Gladys, why don’t you sit down?”
Her face brightened when she looked at him.
“There you are, sweetheart. I’ve been searching everywhere for you.”
Then she touched his cheek affectionately.
I stared at my husband.
Kyle closed his eyes before quietly saying, “Alice, she’s my mother.”
I thought I had misheard him.
Construction & Maintenance
“You told me your mother abandoned you when you were six.”
“My father told me that for thirty years.”
Gladys picked up Mia’s stuffed rabbit and hugged it to her chest.
“The little girl gave me her room,” she said. “I can’t sleep without this.”
