He wasn’t alone.
He held my mom. Her face was red. My great-aunt Celeste was there too.
My stomach twisted.
Great-Aunt Celeste held Mom’s hand, rubbing it. Dad ran his hand down Mom’s back, and when Mom faced Charlie and me, her eyes were all red.
Like she’d been crying.
I started to go toward her—why was she crying?—but Charlie held me back.
He had my shoulders.
“Hold on, Robin,” Charlie said to me. I was the Robin to his Batman always.
Charlie’s words came out whispered, though, and when I looked up at him, his eyes were wide. Like he’d seen a ghost or was scared or something. Charlie rubbed my shoulders. “What’s going on?”
My parents said nothing. Great-Aunt Celeste said nothing.
But then my mom moved.
My dad allowed her to, her steps so quiet when she came over to me. She placed a hand on Charlie’s face, smiling at him, but it looked weird.
My stomach clenched again.
She squeezed Charlie’s face before going down to me. She took my hand. “Love, I need you to go with your dad for a little bit,” she said, gazing back at him. “Your great-aunt and I need to talk to Charlie.”
Charlie’s eyes expanded, his face white like an actual ghost.
I faced Mom. “Why, Mom?”
“Honey, I just need you to go. Just for a little while, okay?” She placed a hand on my face and, suddenly, my dad was in front of me.
Dad placed out his hand.
I took it, but I didn’t want to go. I couldn’t leave Batman.
“Batman?” I said to Charlie, but all he did was blink. He said nothing. He couldn’t.
My mom and great-aunt were too busy leading him out of the room.
Dad took me outside, just the pair of us, and I didn’t understand. He also told me he’d had my god dad Ramses come by to pick up Ares. He was Ares’s pop, and Ramses also took Thatcher and Wells home. Dad said they had to leave because we all had to talk about something here.
My palms sweated in the garden built by my dad’s mom. She’d planted all the flowers in our backyard by hand. My dad grew up here, and I’d heard him say once that the garden was the only reason he kept the house.
I never understood why he’d ever want to get rid of it. Our house was really nice and big. The garden planted by my grandma only made it better.
Dad had his hands in his pockets, walking beside me. “Do you remember the story I told you, son?” he asked, causing me to look up at him. Most people said I looked just like him, but he always said I had my mom’s eyes. I didn’t know if I liked that because my mom was a girl, but Dad said it was a good thing. He said it all the time actually. His lips thinned. “The story about your grandmother. My mom?”
He told me a lot of stories about her. Like how beautiful she was.
She had to be if she planted all these flowers. I twisted my hands. “Which one, Dad?”
He stopped in front of a willow tree, a koi pond circling it. He faced me. “How she’s always here in this place, and even though we can’t see her, she’s always there. Her and your aunt Grace.
”
My aunt Grace was his sister. They had both died before I was born.