Her son looked confused.
“Mom, what is it?”
The woman took one careful step closer.
“Could I see it?”
“No.”
“I’m not going to take it.”
The boy shook his head.
“My aunt said never let anyone have it.”
Her heart pounded.
“What else did she tell you?”
The boy’s expression changed.
“Why?”
“Because I know that necklace.”
He studied her face.
Then looked at her son.
Again that resemblance seemed to disturb him.
His fingers slowly loosened.
He opened the locket.
The mother’s knees almost gave way.
Inside was a tiny photograph.
Not two babies.
Not a stranger.
Her.
Eighteen years old.
Long dark hair.
Thin face.
Eyes that had not yet learned how much fear they could hold.
The picture had been cut from a larger photograph her grandmother once kept in the kitchen.
The mother grabbed the edge of a newspaper box to steady herself.
Her son stood.
“Mom?”
She whispered, “Where did she get that picture?”
The older boy closed the locket.
“My aunt said it belonged to my real mom.”
The younger boy looked at his mother.
Then at the older child.
His face slowly changed.
Children sometimes understood the shape of a truth before adults were ready to give it language.
The mother’s lungs seemed unable to fill.
She stepped closer.
“What’s your name?”
The older boy told her.
The sound meant nothing.
Not the name she had once written on a scrap of paper in a hospital bathroom.
Not the name she had whispered to a newborn she believed she would never see again.
His name had changed.
Of course it had.
She asked, “How old are you?”
“Ten.”
Her heart stopped.
Not seventeen.
Ten.
For one strange second relief and confusion collided.
She had expected the impossible.
Then she calculated again.
Her first baby would be seventeen now.
This child was too young.
The necklace had to have changed hands.
Another explanation.
A coincidence built from stolen family things.
She almost laughed from the emotional whiplash.
Then the boy said, “I think.”
She stared.
“You think?”
“My birthday’s the day my aunt picked.”
The mother’s relief disappeared.
“What does that mean?”
“She said nobody knew exactly when I was born.”
Her son whispered, “That’s weird.”
The older boy shrugged.
“My aunt said hospitals lose things.”
The mother felt cold despite the afternoon sun.
“What was your aunt’s name?”
He hesitated.
Then answered.
The mother did not recognize it.
“Where is she now?”
The boy looked toward the street.
“Gone.”
“Gone where?”
He shrugged.
“She got sick.”
The mother crouched slowly.
Now she was at eye level with him.
“Do you have somewhere to sleep?”
He did not answer.
Her son looked horrified.
“You sleep out here?”
The older boy glared at him.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You’re sitting on cardboard.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
The younger boy opened his mouth.