My mother gave me a sad smile.
“After the fire, sudden movements and loud sounds frightened me for a long time. Sometimes my body still reacts before my mind remembers that I’m safe.”
“And why did you always look at Dad whenever someone asked about your arms?”
This time, my father answered.
“Because we had an agreement. If your mother didn’t want to answer, I would change the subject.”
That was when I understood how badly I had misread everything I had seen.
The man I had silently blamed for my mother’s pain was actually the man who had stayed beside her through the worst years of that pain.
My mother looked down at her uncovered arms for a long moment.
Then she quietly said,
“Do you know what the saddest part is? I hid them for so long that you began to think there must be something shameful behind the secret.”
