An hour later the mayor arrived, pale and useless, followed by state police. Kate handed over Roy’s cabinet, the clippings, her copy of the letter, and the unopened envelope she had sent him. I could not even look at him. He had let the truth sit in front of him for two days and done nothing but warn me away from it.
I asked him the question that had lived inside me since the day he vanished.
Later, when the house had gone quiet, Daniel and I stood alone in the kitchen.
He still had the Sprite bottle on the counter beside him.
“I don’t know what happens next,” he said.
“You don’t have to know tonight.”
He nodded.
I asked him the question that had lived inside me since the day he vanished.
I didn’t get his lost childhood back.
“Did you think I stopped looking?”
He looked at the bottle for a long second.
Then he said, “No.”
I started crying again.
He looked at me and said, “I think part of me knew that. I think that’s why I survived it.”
That broke me more than anything else.
“Daniel stood by the counter, tired and stunned, and alive.
I didn’t get his lost childhood back. I did not get his first shave, his graduation, his wedding, or the day his son was born.
None of that can be returned.
But that night I stood in my son’s kitchen while my grandson pressed a dinosaur sticker into my hand and asked if I liked green.
I told him yes.
Daniel stood by the counter, tired and stunned, and alive.
“I don’t know how to be your son,” he said.
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