“If you need help with anything, or if your father has been calling you, you can tell me,” I said, smoothing my hair behind my ears. “We don’t need secrets in this house.”
Ethan stopped tearing the cardboard, his hand freezing over the box. He turned his head slightly, but he still did not make direct eye contact with me.
“There are things about this house you do not need to worry about, Mom,” he said.
His voice was too quiet for a fifteen-year-old boy, carrying a weight that did not belong to him. I stood by the bed, watching the light from the window hit the lock on his desk drawer, wondering where he had even found the key.
“Your birthday is on July eighteenth,” I said, trying to soften my voice. “I want to make sure we have everything ready for the party.”
“It is fine,” he said. “You do not have to do anything big.”
“We are inviting the neighbors, Ethan. And your father said he is coming.”
