It wasn’t a sight Jack was unaccustomed to seeing; his mother spent more time than not hunched over sheaves of papers in dim light, scratching furiously at the blankness and swearing under her breath.

It was just that, less than a week before, she had announced that her latest book would be her last, that she was retiring from the academic life. When Jack had pressed her for reasons, she had made a light comment about the critical response to her last article and muttered something about not throwing pearls before swine. And Jack had accepted that, or pretended to. But Aunt Harriet had come for tea that day, and afterwards Jack had eavesdropped on their conversation, where he caught words like “permanent strain” and “hereditary weakness.”

When his mother appeared at dinner that night, wearing new spectacles, he had understood, and his stomach knotted in protest at the injustice of it.

Yet here she was, writing, and had been at it in the low kitchen light long enough to pour out two cups of tea and let them both chill, untouched. And though Jack had an instinctive regard for his mother’s privacy, the question weighed on him too heavily to remain unasked.

“What can you be writing that is important enough to risk blindness for?” he said from the aperture, and though it would have gratified him to see her jump, he knew better than to expect it. Or wish it.

She did not jump, but she stopped, and after a moment sat up straight in her chair. Without looking at him, she pushed a chair out from the table with her foot, and Jack sat down.

“I am writing,” she said, and then paused, and cleared her throat. It was a sight he had not seen often enough to be certain, but he was fairly sure that she was embarrassed. “I am writing my memoirs.”

Jack stared at her, and something of his thoughts must have been evident, because she turned away looking cross.

“Is it a tumor?” he said a moment later. “Because if so, I’d rather know right away.”

Her snort of amusement came as a relief, putting them back on level ground. “Tobacco is one of the few bad habits your father never successfully imparted to me.”

“There are other sorts of tumors,” Jack said. “Do you intend to answer my question, or should I leave off asking?”

She studied her hands, her thin wrists protruding from the turned up cuffs of her blouse. The index finger of her right hand traced an old scar, a long, needle thin line just under the jut of bone.

“There is much,” she said, “that I do not know about my parents. When I was your age, I knew even less. And what I eventually learned...”

She paused, and cleared her throat again. “I have been thinking about legacies, recently.” She looked up at him then, her eyes clear and intent over the rim of her spectacles. “Last year, you told me that you don’t remember Holmes.”

Jack took care to keep his face impassive, but his fingers and toes curled in a barely controlled wince. “I...try. Sometimes, I think I have the sound of his voice. But it’s impossible to be sure.” There were other things Jack remembered: stories his father had told him in the final weeks of his life. The strength in his hands, hauling him over gullies and culverts. But he couldn’t articulate this to his mother.

You told me you don’t remember Holmes. If she had been anyone else, she would have said your father.

“I hope this isn’t a sign that I am growing morbid in my age,” she said, “but it occurred to me that—for my own peace of mind—I should like to set some facts straight. While I can. Against a time when I will no longer be here to justify myself.” She adjusted her spectacles, and looked down at the papers again, taking her pen up. “My parents did not have that chance, and I think they would have regretted it. I have regretted it.”

“I think I understand your reasoning,” said Jack after a quiet moment. “You are convinced that you won’t live long enough to go blind.”

“There is always that possibility,” she said, her voice dryer than the parchment under her hands.

“And on the off chance that you do survive, and reap the consequences of going against opthamalogical advice, you will no doubt feel that wasting what remains of your vision was preferable to...”

Her head tilted back, slowly. “To what?”

“To simply telling me.” Jack swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “Whatever it is I should know about you. About Father.”

The back of his neck flushed, miserable and hot, as his mother straightened in her chair again, her eyes hard upon him. He had done what was necessary to avoid that look when he was a boy; she was remarkably respectful of his privacy, compared to other mothers, but that didn’t matter when her eyes filled you with the urge to confess to things you hadn’t even done.

“It is difficult,” she said at last, “to point out the flaw in your logic.”

“That’s because there isn’t one,” he said, relaxing.

They sat and stared at each other. Eventually the silence began to grow uncomfortable.

“This isn’t—”

“Tell me—oh, sorry,”

“No, you go.”

“I just thought,” said Jack, then stopped. “What is it, in particular, that you want me to know about him? The—most important thing, I suppose, and we can work our way down from there.”

She blinked at him for a moment, as though the question were unutterably strange, or stated without benefit of context. Then her gaze grew distant, and the small, frowning line between her eyes deepened. She was thinking; Jack recognized the signs from of old.

“It is hard to reduce a life like his.” She blinked at him again, and for a second her eyes seemed to grow clearer through the thick lenses of her spectacles than they had been for weeks. “We never intended to have a family, you know. Our careers, and Holmes’ enemies, seemed to render the idea—impractical.”

“I had wondered,” said Jack, fighting the spread of color in his cheeks.

“All the same, we were never precisely able to regret the situation once it was fait accompli. And Holmes, in particular...” She seemed to hesitate. “Well. I believe he came to regard you as his greatest creation.”

Jack averted his eyes and folded his hands. It was useless to fight the blush anymore; the best he could do was drop his gaze and study the table cloth.

“He spoke very little of his own family,” she said, and Jack, no longer feeling the weight of her eyes on the top of his head, was aware that she had returned to sifting through her papers. “But I had the distinct impression that he had a difficult relationship with his own father. It would explain a great deal.”

Jack, who had read Freud, and who had heard his mother’s opinions on Freud, declined to make the obvious comment.

“Still,” she continued, “his feelings for you were—unambiguous.” She paused, and cleared her throat. “He would have wanted you to be clear on that point.”

Jack’s mouth felt dry. He reached for his mother’s disregarded tea, stone cold in its cup and saucer, and swallowed enough to wet his throat. When he felt he could trust his voice again, he said, “I understand.”

“I am glad to hear it.” She dropped her gaze once again. “Be that as it may, I must continue with my work. It is for both our sakes. I make very poor company when I am bored.”

Jack recognized the cue to leave when he heard it. “You might at least restrict your work to daylight hours,” he said, standing.

Her answer was a non-committal grunt, indicating that she had already re-categorized his presence in the room as irrelevant to the business at hand.

He looked down at the crown of her head, blonde hair threaded with strands of silver-grey. She had worn it long, pinned to the back of her head, when he was small, but for years now she had cropped it relentlessly to chin length every few months. She had started cutting it, he remembered suddenly, with an almost physical jolt, right after his father had died.

He watched her tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, and filed the thought away, to dwell on the implications later.

“Good night,” he said, and turned from the room. He didn’t wait for an answer, but he doubted she had made one. She was not inclined to make unnecessary conversation.