Carter looked at his mother. "You knew."
"I knew," she said. "I met your father because one of his letters came back to the wrong box. My box. Lowell. He had a box at the post office under a made-up name, because he was scared, and the name he made up was Lowell, off a street sign, and there I was. A real Lowell. With his letter from his own father telling him he didn't exist." Her mouth went crooked. "I took it to the window and asked them to find the man it belonged to. I thought it was the saddest envelope I'd ever seen."
"You said it was a package," Carter said. "You always said it was a package. A mix-up with a package."
"I know, sweetheart."
"So the towels thing. The monogram. That was a—"
"That was a joke," his father said, "to cover a thing that wasn't one." He took his hand out from under his mother's and pressed his thumbs into his eyes. "When we got married I made it legal. Took her name for keeps. Because mine wasn't mine anymore. My father had taken it back. I figured I'd let him have it."
"Then why'd you give it to me?"
His father lowered his hands.
"My name," Carter said. "My real name. Carter. If you didn't want it. Why'd you give it to me?"
The teapot clock ticked. The kids next door had stopped screaming. His mother had to leave in twenty minutes and she didn't move.
"Because it was a good name," his father said, at last. "And it didn't do anything wrong. And I wanted there to be a Carter in this world who never had to run from anybody. Who could just — have it." He looked at his son, and his eyes were wet, which Carter had never seen, not once, not even in January when the space shuttle blew up on the little TV in the carport and he stood there with a VCR in his hands and didn't put it down. "That's all. I wanted you to have it clean."
Carter swallowed.
"She wants to see you," he said.
"No."
"Dad—"