He looked toward the bassinet.
“But I couldn’t stay completely gone.”
Mom sat at June’s kitchen table and finally told me the truth.
Twenty-five years earlier, our father, Frank, had been drinking heavily. He’d lost his job at the plant, and the drinking had nearly destroyed their marriage.
Mom took me and moved in with her sister for almost a year.
During that time, she met Ray.
Her car had broken down on Route 9, and Ray had stopped to help her. He towed the car without charging her a cent.
He was kind to her when kindness was something she desperately needed.
They grew close.
Then Dad got sober.
He began attending meetings every night. He worked to rebuild his life, and one Sunday he appeared on Aunt Carol’s porch with a thirty-day sobriety chip in his hand.
He begged Mom to come home.
By then, she was already pregnant with Kayla.
