Matthew was still sitting in the same chair.<\/p>\n
The cup of water was in front of him.<\/p>\n
He looked up when I entered.<\/p>\n
For a moment, neither of us spoke.<\/p>\n
Then he moved the empty chair slightly away from the table.<\/p>\n
I understood what he meant.<\/p>\n
He wanted me to sit down.<\/p>\n
That small gesture meant more than I knew how to explain.<\/p>\n
Eleven years earlier, I would never have needed permission to sit beside my son.<\/p>\n
Now I was grateful for it.<\/p>\n
I sat carefully.<\/p>\n
Ramirez remained near the doorway.<\/p>\n
"Would you like me to stay?"<\/p>\n
Matthew looked at me.<\/p>\n
I looked back at him.<\/p>\n
"It's your choice," I said.<\/p>\n
Matthew thought for a moment.<\/p>\n
"Just us is okay."<\/p>\n
Ramirez nodded.<\/p>\n
He stepped outside and closed the door.<\/p>\n
I watched Matthew pick up his cup.<\/p>\n
He took a little water.<\/p>\n
Then he set it down again.<\/p>\n
"You were talking about the beach?"<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
"About what happened?"<\/p>\n
"About what I remember."<\/p>\n
Matthew looked toward the window.<\/p>\n
"Did you remember anything new?"<\/p>\n
I hesitated.<\/p>\n
I wanted to tell him about Robert standing near the pool.<\/p>\n
I wanted to explain why that memory had begun troubling me.<\/p>\n
But Ramirez had been careful about something important.<\/p>\n
We could not allow my memories to become Matthew's memories.<\/p>\n
Especially when he was already uncertain about what he remembered from that day.<\/p>\n
"Just some details I hadn't thought about properly," I said.<\/p>\n
Matthew nodded.<\/p>\n
He did not push me.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether he was used to people holding information back from him.<\/p>\n
That thought made me uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
I did not want to become another person deciding what he was ready to know.<\/p>\n
But there was a difference between telling him the truth and filling his mind with suspicions.<\/p>\n
I was still learning that difference.<\/p>\n
Matthew leaned forward.<\/p>\n
"Can I ask you something?"<\/p>\n
"Anything."<\/p>\n
He studied my face.<\/p>\n
"Did you stop looking for me?"<\/p>\n
I felt the question in my chest.<\/p>\n
It was not angry.<\/p>\n
That almost made it worse.<\/p>\n
He sounded as though he genuinely wanted to know.<\/p>\n
I looked down at my hands.<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
He waited.<\/p>\n
"I stopped knowing where to look."<\/p>\n
That was the closest I could come to explaining it.<\/p>\n
For years, I had been trapped between hoping and accepting what everyone believed.<\/p>\n
I had wanted him alive.<\/p>\n
I had also been told that he was gone.<\/p>\n
Living with those two things had changed me.<\/p>\n
Matthew rubbed his thumb along the cup.<\/p>\n
"So you didn't just forget?"<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
"Never."<\/p>\n
The word came out too quickly.<\/p>\n
I slowed down.<\/p>\n
"I never forgot you."<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
But I could tell the answer had not settled everything.<\/p>\n
I wanted to reach across the table.<\/p>\n
I wanted to place my hand over his.<\/p>\n
Instead, I kept still.<\/p>\n
"Matthew, I don't know what you were told about me."<\/p>\n
He looked away.<\/p>\n
"And I don't want to guess."<\/p>\n
He returned his eyes to mine.<\/p>\n
"But whatever you heard, I want you to be able to ask me."<\/p>\n
He swallowed.<\/p>\n
"Even if it's bad?"<\/p>\n
"Especially then."<\/p>\n
We sat quietly.<\/p>\n
He rubbed the side of his finger.<\/p>\n
I remembered that movement from our first conversation.<\/p>\n
It was becoming familiar.<\/p>\n
Not the way a father's knowledge of his child should have been familiar.<\/p>\n
But it was something.<\/p>\n
Matthew looked toward the door.<\/p>\n
"Do you hate Robert?"<\/p>\n
I went still.<\/p>\n
I had been preparing myself for questions about the ocean.<\/p>\n
Questions about why I had left him.<\/p>\n
Questions about why I had believed he was dead.<\/p>\n
I had not expected that name.<\/p>\n
"Why do you ask?"<\/p>\n
Matthew shrugged.<\/p>\n
"His picture."<\/p>\n
I nodded slowly.<\/p>\n
"Ramirez showed it to you?"<\/p>\n
"Yeah."<\/p>\n
I thought about the photograph lying on the other table.<\/p>\n
Robert smiling.<\/p>\n
Matthew holding the bucket.<\/p>\n
I took a breath.<\/p>\n
"I don't know what I feel about Robert right now."<\/p>\n
Matthew watched me.<\/p>\n
"Is that bad?"<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
I paused.<\/p>\n
"Or maybe it is. I don't know."<\/p>\n
He looked down.<\/p>\n
"I remember somebody being there."<\/p>\n
My chest tightened.<\/p>\n
"At the children's club?"<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
"But I can't remember everything."<\/p>\n
"That's okay."<\/p>\n
He made a frustrated sound.<\/p>\n
"You keep saying that."<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
"Because I mean it."<\/p>\n
Matthew leaned back.<\/p>\n
For a moment, he seemed older than I expected.<\/p>\n
Then he looked young again.<\/p>\n
Confused.<\/p>\n
Tired.<\/p>\n
Trying to understand something he had never been given a chance to understand properly.<\/p>\n
"I don't want to remember something just because somebody tells me," he said.<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
"Neither do I."<\/p>\n
That answer surprised him.<\/p>\n
I could see it.<\/p>\n
I told him about the problem I had been facing.<\/p>\n
Not Robert's behavior.<\/p>\n
Not my suspicions.<\/p>\n
Just the difficulty of separating an old memory from the explanation I had carried for years.<\/p>\n
"Sometimes I remember what happened," I said.<\/p>\n
"And sometimes I remember what I was told happened."<\/p>\n
Matthew looked at me.<\/p>\n
"How do you know the difference?"<\/p>\n
I took a moment.<\/p>\n
"Sometimes I don't."<\/p>\n
He stared at the table.<\/p>\n
Then he gave a small nod.<\/p>\n
"Me too."<\/p>\n
Those two words stayed with me.<\/p>\n
I had spent eleven years believing I understood the worst part of our story.<\/p>\n
I thought the worst part was losing him.<\/p>\n
But sitting across from Matthew, I began to understand something else.<\/p>\n
He had questions about his own life.<\/p>\n
Questions that belonged to him.<\/p>\n
And he had been carrying those questions without me.<\/p>\n
I could not repair that with an apology.<\/p>\n
I could not repair it by promising that everything would be fine.<\/p>\n
I could only tell him the truth.<\/p>\n
Even when the truth was incomplete.<\/p>\n
Matthew touched the cup again.<\/p>\n
"Do you remember what I was like?"<\/p>\n
I smiled before I could stop myself.<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
He looked curious.<\/p>\n
"Really?"<\/p>\n
"Of course."<\/p>\n
He glanced down.<\/p>\n
"What was I like?"<\/p>\n
I thought of the little boy in the photograph.<\/p>\n
The red bucket.<\/p>\n
The way he could become completely occupied with something small.<\/p>\n
I did not want to pretend I remembered every minute of his childhood.<\/p>\n
But there were things I knew.<\/p>\n
"You liked having something to carry around."<\/p>\n
Matthew smiled faintly.<\/p>\n
"Like the bucket?"<\/p>\n
"Like the bucket."<\/p>\n
He laughed.<\/p>\n
It was brief.<\/p>\n
Almost embarrassed.<\/p>\n
But I heard it.<\/p>\n
And for one impossible second, I felt the distance between us narrow.<\/p>\n
I wanted to hear that laugh again.<\/p>\n
I wanted to ask him to tell me about everything he liked now.<\/p>\n
But I did not want to turn our conversation into an interview.<\/p>\n
So I let the moment remain what it was.<\/p>\n
A father.<\/p>\n
A son.<\/p>\n
A small shared memory.<\/p>\n
Matthew looked at me again.<\/p>\n
"Do you still think about that day?"<\/p>\n
"Every day."<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
"Me too. Sometimes."<\/p>\n
I felt my smile disappear.<\/p>\n
I wanted to ask what those memories were like.<\/p>\n
But he had already told me how uncertain he felt about them.<\/p>\n
I decided not to push.<\/p>\n
Instead, I asked a different question.<\/p>\n
"Would you rather talk about something else?"<\/p>\n
He thought about it.<\/p>\n
"Maybe."<\/p>\n
"All right."<\/p>\n
He looked toward the window.<\/p>\n
"What happens now?"<\/p>\n
I had no answer prepared.<\/p>\n
That was the truth.<\/p>\n
I had been so focused on reaching him that I had barely considered what would follow.<\/p>\n
I knew I wanted him safe.<\/p>\n
I knew I wanted him in my life.<\/p>\n
But I also knew he was no longer a little boy I could simply take by the hand.<\/p>\n
He had lived eleven years beyond my knowledge.<\/p>\n
Whatever happened next would involve his choices, too.<\/p>\n
"I don't know every part of it yet," I admitted.<\/p>\n
Matthew watched me.<\/p>\n
"But I'd like to keep talking to you."<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
"I think I'd like that."<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
"Really?"<\/p>\n
He gave me a small smile.<\/p>\n
"Yeah."<\/p>\n
I felt tears coming again.<\/p>\n
I looked away before they fell.<\/p>\n
I did not want every conversation between us to end with me crying.<\/p>\n
Matthew noticed anyway.<\/p>\n
"It's okay," he said.<\/p>\n
I laughed quietly.<\/p>\n
"Now you're saying it."<\/p>\n
He smiled.<\/p>\n
This time, the smile stayed a little longer.<\/p>\n
We sat there without speaking.<\/p>\n
And for once, the silence did not feel like an absence.<\/p>\n
It felt like two people learning how to be in the same room.<\/p>\n
I had spent eleven years trying to understand how Matthew disappeared.<\/p>\n
Now I had another responsibility.<\/p>\n
I needed to learn who he had become.<\/p>\n
Matthew was still sitting in the same chair. The cup of water was in front of him. He looked up when I entered. For a moment, neither of us spoke. … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37209","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\/37209","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=37209"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37229,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37209\/revisions\/37229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}