I quickly wiped the tears from my eyes with my forearm. I sucked in another breath and then a sniffle and forced my shoulders to drop.
A moment later, the door opened, and I recognized Darius because I’d seen him at this age before. Tiberius followed behind him, both of them wearing packs across their backs. Anya’s voice followed them out the door. “Be back before dark, boys.” The door shut, and they crossed the yard to the short stone wall that separated our property from the main road. Both of them stared down at the ground, so they didn’t notice me right away.
They moved through the opening in the wall and stepped onto the path.
Riviana faded from the spot, making herself invisible to me so it would feel like just the three of us.
Darius halted when his eyes lifted and he spotted me. He stopped in his tracks and immediately elbowed his brother in the side to silently get his attention. He was officially a teenager, and he was tall for his age, getting his height from me. Still a boy but in the process of becoming a man.
Tiberius released a tiny gasp when he looked at my face.
So overwhelmed with emotion, I was frozen in place, seeing my boys looking back at me for the first time.
I lowered myself to one knee to match their height, because I still towered over them both. I looked into their eyes as they looked into mine, and I knew the only explanation for their reaction was because…they remembered me. I looked a lot like my brother, so they would undoubtedly pick up on the similarity alone. “Do you know who I am?”
Darius quickly glanced at his brother before he looked at me again. “Yes.”
“Who am I?” I asked, my hands together as my arms rested on my thighs, wanting to know with certainty that they hadn’t forgotten me.
“Dad…” Darius finally said.
Tiberius nodded.
I nearly burst into tears when I heard the name. Being called Dad was my greatest—and my saddest—memory. “There’ssomething I need to explain to you two. I know it’ll be hard to understand, but I didn’t leave because I wanted to. I would never want to leave my boys.”
“Then why did you?” Darius asked.
My boys had always been smart and resourceful, and I hoped that now that they were older, they would be able to understand what I tried to tell them. “Because I was forced to. When your mother was sick, I made a deal with a bad man to spare her life, but it came at a great cost.”
Both boys listened to that in silence, probably unsure exactly what that meant.
“I’ve watched you grow up. You just can’t see me.”
“Will you come back, then?” Darius asked.
“I—I can’t,” I said as my tears started to well. “I would love to. I’m so proud of you boys, but I can’t… But know that I’m with you, that I watch you every day.”
“Dad, I don’t understand,” Tiberius said.
The tears dripped down my cheeks when I heard how effortlessly he called me that. “I know it’s hard to understand right now. I just want you to know how much I love you both, and Inever,everwanted to leave you. I think about you every day…always.”
Riviana appeared behind them, silently telling me the reunion had concluded.
“Please don’t tell your mother about this, okay?” I didn’t want to scare her. For her to think I was there to steal the children back.
Darius nodded.
I opened my arms in the hope they would come to me and let me embrace them.
But Darius didn’t move. He stared at me with a hint of distrust.
Tiberius did, though. He came to me and landed on my chest.
My arms immediately squeezed him tightly, my face burying in his hair and smelling the scent I still remembered after four hundred long years. I wanted to hold both of my sons, but it was a gift to hold just one, to show him love through my touch. “I love you.” I brushed a kiss to his forehead before I squeezed him again.
“I love you too, Dad.” He eventually left my arms and walked back to his brother.
Darius still didn’t trust me, probably because he was older, had become the man of the family in a lot of aspects. He was more aware of his mother’s misery, picked up on all the terrible things Anya must have said about me when she spoke to my brother in private.
