Chapter 28

“No, it’s not—”

“Save it. I know your mind went there for a moment. She’s black, and Grandpa was Korean. My mom looked mixed.” Kaos pointed at a photo of his mom when she’d been fifteen, just a couple of years before he’d been born. She looked so young and pretty in it. “My dad, I assume he was white, you know?” He gestured at himself. Somehow all the different genes had mixed into a blond with slightly tanned-looking skin and hazel eyes. If you squinted, there might’ve been some of his grandpa in him, but mostly he just looked like a paler version of his mom.

“You look a lot like her,” Padraig mused out loud.

“I think so too. That’s not how I remember her, though. She wasn’t a good mom—that’s why Grandma raised me. I always saw her when she came back to try to get cash from Grandma, and she didn’t look anything like that.”

“That’s… sad.”

“Yeah, it is what it is, and here I am. It’s not a big deal anymore. I don’t even miss her.”