“Yes,” he said.
“You do.”
Ethan seemed pleased.
Then he went back to the photographs.
I watched Robert watching him.
Ten years earlier, that same face had opened a door none of us knew existed.
Not because resemblance was destiny.
Not because blood determined love.
But because sometimes a familiar feature reminds people of unfinished conversations.
And unfinished conversations, when given enough honesty, can become beginnings.
That night, after Ethan went to bed, Logan and I sat on our porch.
The house was quiet.
Robert had gone home.
Marisol had left after packing herself three pieces of leftover birthday cake “for quality control.”
Logan reached for my hand.
“Do you ever think about that hospital?”
“Yes.”
“What do you remember?”
I thought about it.
The cold morning.
The suitcase.
The empty chair beside my bed.
My fear.
Then Ethan’s first cry.
Robert standing frozen near the doorway.
The letter.
