Every Sunday when she called him to talk, she would hold the picture in her hands, remembering the sun of that day, the baked smell of his skin, but she never mentioned it to him. Such intimacy would embarrass him. Their relationship, once so close that he was physically part of her, was now delicate, limited. When she got too sentimental, he rebuffed her. Every week, she vowed to herself that she would not pester him again with her chatter, and every week, craving his warm voice and recalling the concord of their heartbeats, she broke down and called him.He was the kind of boy who had a list of safe topics ready for Mother.She had raised him alone. For almost a year after separating from her husband, she suffered from a painful amazement that he could just walk away from their relationship the way he had. How could you give up on other people? How could he abandon his home like that? Then for a long time she contemplated his rejection, wondering if there was some important conclusion to draw, but, in time, a very green spring came along.
