Kyle didn't remember driving to his mother's house. He pulled into the driveway of the house he'd grown up in and killed the engine. The porch light was on. His mother always left the porch light on. She said it was so he could find his way home, even though he hadn't lived there in years.

He sat in the car for a long moment, staring at the front door. Then he got out and walked up the path and rang the bell.

He heard her footsteps before she opened the door.

"Kyle?" she said when she opened the door, and then she stopped.

"Mom," he said, and his voice was his father's voice, and he watched her flinch at the sound of it. He watched her body remember things she'd spent seven years trying to forget.

"Jenkins," she said, and her voice was ice. "What are you doing here? Get off my property before I call the police."

"Mom, it's me. It's Kyle."

She stared at him. Her hand was still on her chest, and her knuckles were white against the fabric of her robe.

"Get out," she said.

"Mom, please. I can prove it. Ask me something. Ask me anything."

Her eyes narrowed. For a long moment, she didn't move. Then she said, "What did you say to me on the night of your high school graduation?"

"I said I was glad you were there. And then I said I was sorry Dad wasn't, because I thought you'd want him to be, and you told me never to apologize for him again. That he'd made his choices and we'd made ours."

Her face softened."Kyle?" Just for a second, and then it smoothed back out into something hard and careful. But she opened the door wider.

"Come in," she said. "Are you okay?"

---

Kyle sat at the kitchen table while his mother made tea. She hadn't said a word since she'd put the kettle on. She moved around the kitchen with her back straight and her shoulders tight, and he watched her and waited.

The tea appeared in front of him. She sat down across from him and folded her hands on the table.

"How this happened? Please explain Kyle ," she said.

So he did. He told her everything. The cruise. The moment on the bed when the screen flickered and the world turned to electricity and …