He looked at his mother’s eyes, and the laughter died in his throat. Where had he seen that look before?
Mutty felt a sudden almost irresistible, absolutely crazy urge to laugh. Here he’d been hiding a secret for days, weeks. Hiding it from friends, from his brother and parents, for some time hiding it even from himself. And now it was publicly announced by a little girl with tomato sauce dripping onto her chin.
He looked at his mother’s eyes, and the laughter died in his throat.
Where had he seen that look before? The vulnerability and surprise, eyes that asked, demanded an answer: Can this be happening to me? Is this world so cruel?
With a pang that was almost physical in its strength, he remembered. That’s what Perele Schwartz’s eyes looked like, when she’d been attacked by those hoodlums.
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