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My son that is now thirty-eight years old.
Emotion explodes out of me in spurts of sobs.
“No, Dad.” James pushes out of my hold. “No.”
I swipe away the tears with the back of my hands.
“Please.” I close the inches between us. “Just let me hold you,” I beg. “Please, son. MyGod, my son.”
“No—no, Tristan.”
Tristan.The anger in his face guts me.
James blows out a breath, walks to the sink, takes off his glasses, and splashes cold water on his face.
I watch in awe—my son is back.
He wipes his face with a towel, smearing the mascara and lipstick he’d applied that morning.
“Why?” It’s the only word I can muster.
James snorts as he tosses the towel back on the rack. “How many hours you got?”
“A lifetime.”
He stares at me.
“Please, James. Will you sit?”
• • •
For twenty minutes, we say nothing. Not a single a word. Just sit in silence across from each other, listening to the storm rage outside.
James is twirling the pocketknife I found hidden in his closet between his fingers.
Eventually, I speak. “Can we start with what happened the day you disappeared?”
He won’t look at me. And that’s okay, as long as he’s here.
“I ran away,” he says.
“Why?”
“Because you hated me.”
“Why would you think that?”
James rolls his eyes like a petulant teenager. Except he’s not. He’s a full-grown adult now.
“Come on, Tristan. You gave up on me the moment I quit sports and started painting. You literally stopped talking to me. You were so disappointed in me.”
“I didn’t—”
“Yes, you did,” he snaps. “And you gave up on Mom, too.”
I look down.
The night James disappeared, the police officers asked if there had been a fight between us. I’d lied when I said no.
