The next time I spoke with Robert, I did not plan to discuss the past.<\/p>\n
I wanted to know whether we could have an ordinary conversation without the disappearance sitting between us.<\/p>\n
For years, our friendship had been shaped by what happened to Matthew.<\/p>\n
Robert had become the person who helped me endure the loss.<\/p>\n
Now I could no longer accept his comfort without wondering whether his account of that afternoon was complete.<\/p>\n
I had to find out whether there was anything left of the friendship outside that question.<\/p>\n
I called him on a quiet evening.<\/p>\n
He answered after several rings.<\/p>\n
We spoke briefly about work and the ordinary business of life.<\/p>\n
For a few minutes, I felt the familiarity return.<\/p>\n
Then Robert asked whether I had heard anything new.<\/p>\n
I told him I had spoken with Ramirez.<\/p>\n
He wanted to know what she had said.<\/p>\n
I explained that the investigation was continuing.<\/p>\n
He sighed.<\/p>\n
He said he hoped I wasn't putting myself through unnecessary pain.<\/p>\n
I looked toward the shelf where I had placed the red bucket.<\/p>\n
"I'm trying to understand what happened."<\/p>\n
He told me that there might never be a complete answer.<\/p>\n
I knew that was possible.<\/p>\n
I had lived with that possibility for eleven years.<\/p>\n
But I no longer wanted to accept it before the questions had been properly examined.<\/p>\n
"I need to know that I've done everything I can."<\/p>\n
Robert was quiet.<\/p>\n
Then he said he understood.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether he did.<\/p>\n
We ended the call without arguing.<\/p>\n
I sat at the table afterward and thought about the conversation.<\/p>\n
I had not learned anything new.<\/p>\n
I had not proved that Robert was lying.<\/p>\n
But I had noticed how quickly he returned to the idea that I should stop searching.<\/p>\n
Perhaps he genuinely wanted me to be free of the pain.<\/p>\n
Perhaps he feared what continued questioning might uncover.<\/p>\n
I could not know which possibility was true.<\/p>\n
I wrote both down in my notebook.<\/p>\n
Then I closed it.<\/p>\n
I did not want to spend the rest of my life inventing motives for every sentence Robert spoke.<\/p>\n
I wanted facts.<\/p>\n
The next morning, Ramirez called.<\/p>\n
She asked me to clarify something about the photograph.<\/p>\n
I told her that I had it again.<\/p>\n
She asked whether I could bring it to our next meeting.<\/p>\n
I agreed.<\/p>\n
I placed it in the same envelope Matthew had returned.<\/p>\n
When I arrived, Ramirez examined the picture carefully.<\/p>\n
She asked me to identify the people in it.<\/p>\n
I pointed out Matthew and Robert.<\/p>\n
I explained where the photograph had been taken.<\/p>\n
She asked whether I remembered who had taken it.<\/p>\n
I did not.<\/p>\n
That was another small gap in my memory.<\/p>\n
I had always been so focused on the fact that Robert was standing behind Matthew that I had never thought much about the person holding the camera.<\/p>\n
Ramirez asked whether the photograph had been taken before or after I arranged for Robert to watch my son.<\/p>\n
I said I believed it had been taken during the same period, but I could not establish the exact order of events from the picture alone.<\/p>\n
She wrote that down.<\/p>\n
I watched her examine the image once more.<\/p>\n
There was nothing unusual about it.<\/p>\n
No visible sign of danger.<\/p>\n
No message hidden in the background.<\/p>\n
No evidence that could explain what happened afterward.<\/p>\n
It was an ordinary photograph of an ordinary afternoon.<\/p>\n
I had to stop asking it to be more than that.<\/p>\n
Ramirez returned it to me.<\/p>\n
I placed it in the envelope.<\/p>\n
Then I asked whether the renewed examination had changed anything about the understanding of the case.<\/p>\n
She told me she could not yet give me a final answer.<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
I was disappointed, but I did not argue.<\/p>\n
I had learned that pressing someone for certainty did not make certainty appear.<\/p>\n
After the meeting, I called Matthew.<\/p>\n
I asked whether he wanted to have dinner together sometime.<\/p>\n
He considered it.<\/p>\n
Then he agreed.<\/p>\n
We chose a day and a place.<\/p>\n
When I ended the call, I felt something I had not expected.<\/p>\n
Nervousness.<\/p>\n
I had spent years imagining the day I would see my son again.<\/p>\n
Now I was nervous about choosing a restaurant and deciding what to talk about over dinner.<\/p>\n
It was almost funny.<\/p>\n
I had once believed that finding him would solve the most difficult part of my life.<\/p>\n
Instead, I was learning how to be a father to a seventeen-year-old who had become a stranger to me.<\/p>\n
I wanted to get it right.<\/p>\n
I knew I couldn't.<\/p>\n
The dinner was quiet at first.<\/p>\n
We looked at the menu.<\/p>\n
Matthew asked what I usually ordered.<\/p>\n
I told him.<\/p>\n
He chose something different.<\/p>\n
We spoke about the food, the place, and the people around us.<\/p>\n
For a while, the disappearance did not come up.<\/p>\n
I felt relieved.<\/p>\n
Then Matthew asked whether I still spoke to Robert.<\/p>\n
I told him that I had spoken with him recently.<\/p>\n
He asked whether Robert had explained what happened.<\/p>\n
I said no.<\/p>\n
Matthew looked down at his plate.<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
He asked whether I believed Robert was hiding something.<\/p>\n
I thought carefully before answering.<\/p>\n
"I believe there are questions he hasn't answered."<\/p>\n
Matthew looked at me.<\/p>\n
"Is that different?"<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
I explained that I could not know whether he was deliberately hiding something or whether there were details he could not remember clearly.<\/p>\n
I did not want to confuse my suspicion with proof.<\/p>\n
Matthew seemed to consider that.<\/p>\n
Then he nodded.<\/p>\n
We returned to our meal.<\/p>\n
I was grateful that he had asked.<\/p>\n
I was also grateful that I had not tried to give him an answer I didn't have.<\/p>\n
When dinner ended, I walked with him toward the place where we were separating.<\/p>\n
He asked whether we could meet again soon.<\/p>\n
I told him yes.<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
We said goodbye.<\/p>\n
On the way home, I thought about the two questions I had been carrying for eleven years.<\/p>\n
Where was Matthew?<\/p>\n
And what had happened to him?<\/p>\n
One of those questions had finally been answered.<\/p>\n
The other remained.<\/p>\n
I could not force the remaining question to disappear simply because I had found my son.<\/p>\n
But I could stop letting it consume every moment we shared.<\/p>\n
I wanted to know the truth about Robert.<\/p>\n
I also wanted to know Matthew.<\/p>\n
Those were not competing responsibilities.<\/p>\n
I could pursue one without sacrificing the other.<\/p>\n
That night, I put the photograph in the drawer beside the notebook.<\/p>\n
I closed the drawer.<\/p>\n
Then I went to bed without taking either one out again.<\/p>\n
The next time I spoke with Robert, I did not plan to discuss the past. I wanted to know whether we could have an ordinary conversation without the disappearance sitting … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37162,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37142\/revisions\/37162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}