My mother fed the homeless boy who lived behind our house even when there was barely enough food for us. Twenty years later, after her funeral, he stepped out of a black SUV, took my hands in his, and said, “Before she died, she begged me to keep her secret from you.”
I was eight years old when Dorian first appeared near the dumping ground at the end of our street.
He looked about eighteen, though hunger made him seem both younger and older. His cheeks were hollow, his clothes hung loosely from his shoulders, and he slept beneath a sheet of rusted metal propped against the back wall of an abandoned shed.
Our neighbors complained about him.
Some called the police. Others left trash farther down the road so they would not have to pass him.
My mother, Marlene, carried him a plate of food.
At first, I thought it was something she would do once. Mom had always been that kind of person. She returned lost wallets, brought soup to sick neighbors, and never passed a stranded driver without slowing down.
But the next afternoon, she fed him again.
Then the next.
My father, Peter, had died only three months earlier. His heart had stopped without warning while he was repairing a fence for a customer. He was forty-six.
After his death, every dollar in our house seemed to have a job before it arrived.
Mom worked mornings at a bakery and spent evenings cleaning offices. She kept our bills in separate envelopes and counted grocery money at the kitchen table every Sunday.
We ate a lot of soup.
Sometimes dinner was potatoes and toast. Sometimes Mom claimed she had already eaten at work, though I often found her sitting alone later with a cup of tea.
Still, Dorian received a meal every day.
If we had chicken, Mom saved him a piece.
If she brought home day-old rolls from the bakery, she placed two in a paper bag for him before I was allowed to touch them.
I watched her cross the empty lot each afternoon, holding a covered plate against her chest.
Dorian always stood when he saw her.
He took the food with both hands and thanked her quietly.
I hated the way he looked at her.
There was trust in his eyes. The kind of trust I thought belonged only to me.
One Saturday, the smell of apples and cinnamon filled our kitchen.
I ran downstairs and found an apple pie cooling on the counter. It was my favorite dessert, and Mom had not baked one since Dad died.
For the first time in weeks, I felt something close to happiness.
“Is that for dinner?” I asked.
Mom folded a clean cloth over the pie.
“No, sweetheart. There’s vegetable soup on the stove.”
