“I don’t remember this…” He walked across the room to where a large family portrait was hanging on the back wall. It was identical to the one that Honora had shown them both weeks earlier, only in this portrait, it was Christopher’s mother who stood over his shoulder.
“I doubt it is real,” Rose said. “Likely, it is a replica based on the other one.”
He nodded. “That makes sense.”
“But that your father sought to have it made…” She took his hand again, and together they looked upon the family that Christopher had never known. “He really did love her.”
Rose had thought that there was something wrong with the other portrait when she had first seen it. She hadn’t been able to pinpoint what exactly it was, assuming it was the simple matter of Christopher’s mother not looking like her son. Now, to see this other version, she knew immediately what the problem was.
In her mind, this was the real portrait. This was the real family. She could literally see the love blooming between the three of them. She could see how similar Christopher looked to both his father and his mother. She could see the happiness that poured from them, and she wondered what life might have been like had their love been allowed out into the world.
“What else is there…” Rose asked as she looked around the room.
They found other items from Christopher’s childhood, things that he could not remember having made. Drawings that he had done as a child. Articles of clothing that he had once worn. There were also drawings of Christopher, ones that his mother must have held onto when she could not see him, and he even found a diary that he refused to read from.
“That is between her and my father,” he said once he glanced at the first page. “I think it is better to imagine how they were… if that makes sense?”
“It makes perfect sense.”
They were holding hands in the middle of the room, looking into one another’s eyes, basking in the midday sun that bathed the room in golden light. And as they did, Rose could see something in her husband’s eyes… a question that he could not quite bring himself to ask.
“Say it,” she said.
“What?” he balked.
She rolled her eyes. “No more lies, remember? Say it.”
He breathed out, and she could feel him relax. “You are free to say no to this…”
“I know I am.”
“And I do not want you to think that I am pressuring you.”
“You never could.”
“Being here, seeing this room…” He squeezed her hands further and smiled at her. “I know when we married, I said that I did not want children. Or rather, that you were not expected to carry any. But this marriage, Rose, it is not as it once was, and I am not who I was once, for that matter. And now I can’t help but wonder…” He exhaled and looked around the room.
She laughed. “Still, you cannot say it.”
“Have a child with me,” he said. “I want to start a family, Rose. I want… I want what my father never had. As I said, you do not have to agree, you are welcome to think about it, but it is something that –”
“Yes,” Rose said without hesitation.
He blinked. “Did you just say…”
“I said yes.”
Rose had not given any thought to children, but the moment that Christopher said the words, she knew they were the right ones. All her life, she had acted as a mother to her younger sister, and she had believed truly that this alone was enough to satisfy any motherly urges that she might have.
Now, she knew better.
Having a child wasn’t just about being a mother. Rather, it was about having a family and raising that family with the person you loved. She loved Christopher more than she thought possible, and just the thought of having a child with him, of seeing that child grow before their eyes… it made her want to cry.
Which she started to do.
“What’s wrong?” Christopher asked when he saw the tears. “Rose…” He reached forward to wipe the tears away.
She snatched the hand. “Nothing is wrong. In fact, as I can see it, everything is right.”
