Features I’ve only ever seen in old baby photos of myself.
Emma has never told me about her child’s name. Not his age. And I’ve never asked.
I turn to her, questions surely written all over my face as the pieces come together.
“Emma?” I ask. “Is he…?”
She bites her bottom lip. Her face is puffy from crying. She’s still in her work scrubs as she stares at me. When she answers, it’s so quietly that I almost miss it beneath the roaring in my ears.
“He’s yours.”
My heart stops.
Time stops.
Everything just… stops.
“He?” I ask. “Your son?”
“Our son,” she says. “He’s ours. Yours and mine, and his name is Laddie.”
Laddie.
My grandmother used to call me “Laddie-Boy” when I was a kid. She was loud, stubborn as hell, but she loved me fiercely. She died of cancer when I was in ninth grade, the only adult who ever really gave a damn about me.
I swallow hard, my eyes glued to the photo. “He’s… how old?”
“He’s five,” Emma says softly.
Six years.
It’s been six years since Emma Reyes disappeared from my life.
Six years since we were two kids in love, planning a future we thought we’d get to have. She was making art, and I was off to play college hockey.
And then one morning, she was gone.
No explanation.
No goodbye.
No trace.
I was left to pick up the pieces of a shattered heart.
I nod slowly, eyes glued to the photograph of the little boy with my eyes and Emma’s smile.
There’s no denying it.
Not anymore.
The hair. The freckles. The green eyes.
After taking a deep breath and then letting it out slowly, I say, “I think we have some things to talk about.”
“I agree,” she says.
We sit there surrounded by boxes knocked over and toys scattered on the rug. All of it is a brutal reminder of why I’m here, of who’s missing.
