My mother and my husband had disliked each other from the beginning.

For thirty-one years, there were forced smiles, early departures, and awkward holidays. Eleanor never once called Curtis her son. Curtis told me he would rather work Christmas than sit at her table again.

Whenever I asked why, they gave me the same answer.

“We come from different worlds.”

I assumed it was money. My mother had built a successful business. Curtis had grown up with almost nothing.

Then, after a terrible argument, I heard my mother hiss:

“You know exactly what you did.”

Curtis said nothing.

Eventually, I stopped asking.

She died at eighty-one.

At the funeral reception, Curtis suddenly disappeared. I found him alone beside her coffin.

He was whispering.

“I kept our secret,” he told her. “Nobody ever found out.”

Then he mentioned the red maple in her yard.

The tree she had planted thirty-one years earlier.

The tree she had protected like a child.

That night, I went home for a shovel.