“I wanted to ask my mom about what I’d overheard, but I didn’t even know where to start. I was angry that people were talking about us, and that man scared me. I thought maybe I should warn her about him. But I never said anything.” He glanced at Olivia, who was listening closely to every word. “I couldn’t understand why this stranger was so interested in my family.”
“That must have been pretty frightening for a kid.”
“Yeah. And then my mom died. I don’t remember how soon, maybe a few days after that. I didn’t want to think about the man at the barbershop.”
The last thing he’d wanted to do was say bad things about his mother, even if those things had been spoken by someone else. He’d buried the incident deep.
“So what brought it back to you?” Olivia asked. Her heels sank into the sand.
