"Would you have called me Kurt?" His tail lashed as he sat by my bed. We were playing Crazy Eights again. It was almost a tradition.
"No." I looked at my cards and played the King of Clubs.
"What would my name have been?" He tossed the King of Hearts on the pile. I frowned at him.
"Did you have to change suits?" I picked through my hand.
"Don't change the subject, mother." He put his hand over my cards and smiled. "Tell me. What was the name you gave me?"
I looked away, and he caught my other hand in both of his. I gave a reluctant smile. "You think you can get away with anything if you do that, do you not?" He grinned and nodded. I gave up, put the cards down, and continued. "Very well. Your father and I thought you should be named for him, but after he … left us, I did not want to call you by his name. So I called you Michael, after my grandfather, Michel."
"Tell me a story about my great-grandmother." He crossed his legs and got ready to listen.
I tucked the sheets around my chest and nodded. "I remember she and I once were having a meal together. She had some tasty smoked sausages on the table. She asked me if I was done eating, and when I said no, she asked what I would like. I told her that another of the smaller, seared sausages would be good. She asked, 'Oh, you mean like this one?' as she took one I wanted off the serving plate and ate it."
Kurt laughed. "She really did?"
I smiled. "Yes."
"What else did she do?" Kurt asked eagerly.
"You have already heard most of my stories about her, you know," I said gently.
"Not all of them, though." His eyes pleaded with me.
"This is unfair." I idly picked at the cards, and Kurt took them from me.
"No more cards now, ja? Tell me, mother."
I looked down at the sheets again. I had to gather my courage to tell this story. After a minute or two, I began a new one. "I never told you what she did when my parents threw me out of the house for being a mutant, did I? I went to her house across town, walking. Running. My dress got wet and muddy from the walk. She came to the door herself. She almost never did that. She let me in. I started to tell her what happened but she shushed me, opened her arms, and said, 'Karla and Gunter are fools. Come to me, my Raven.' She hated getting dirty, too, but she said nothing as I threw myself into her arms, nothing but that she loved me."
I bit my lip, trying to hold back the tears again. Kurt asked, "What happened next?"
"She gave me tea and toast, told me to calm down, and said again that my parents were fools. She said we would do all right without them. Then she caught influenza about three months later and died." My jaw set as I saw her, coughing and weak near the end, and I turned back to my son with an effort. A muscle in my cheek twitched. "No more today, Kurt. I am tired."
"All right." He gathered the cards together, then gave a mischievous smile. "By the way, I saw Logan leaving your room earlier."
I was confused and a little annoyed by his comment. "So?"
"Do you need a chaperone, or will you be all right alone with him?" he teased.
Now, I was very annoyed. It was no business … it was … "He is nothing to me!" I said fiercely. "He was just … he just wanted to know if I was all right."
"Mother?" Now Kurt was confused. He pulled back from me and looked down at me soberly. "He wasn't bothering you, was he?"
I made a visible effort and calmed down. "No, no. No more than usual, anyhow," I corrected myself, crossing my arms.
He grinned. "No more than I do, I hope."
I raised an eyebrow. "Go." As he closed the door, I remembered to say it. "Thank you for coming. And playing." He smiled and left me then.
I held my pose for a few seconds, then relaxed and let a long breath out. He had believed me. Thank goodness. I did not want anyone to know how very much Logan disturbed me now, and in what ways. I did not want to be the subject of even more gossip, furthermore. And most of all, I did not want anyone to know that he had been coming to see me almost daily over the past few weeks, or how much I looked forward to his visits.