Part 1: For six long years, he convinced me that my son had decided to leave me. I thought he was gone forever from my life. But the morning he came back, I realized that the truth I had hoped for was not the one I should look for.
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The knock on the door came right after dawn.
At first, I almost ignored her.
Marcus had already gone out for his usual morning walk, and he did not expect visitors. I put the robe around my waist, walked quietly to the front door and opened it.
A man was standing on my balcony.
He was tall and affable, wearing dark jeans and a simple navy blue sweater. His hair was perfectly trimmed, a short beard framed his face and his posture conveyed a certain composure, almost like that of a soldier.
For a brief moment, I thought I should have missed it.
Then our eyes crossed.
My breath stuck in my throat.
Andrew?
His throat moved when he swallowed. No irritation.
“Hi, Mom.”
A sound escaped from my chest before I could stop it.
Six years.
For six years, I imagined this moment in a hundred different ways. I figured it on the other side of the supermarket corridor, outside the church, on the sidewalk, in the crowd. Sometimes, in my imagination, I was older. Other times, it still looked like the boy who had disappeared from my life.
But I never would have imagined it there, like that.
I took a step towards her, with her arms already outstretched.
“My baby...”
“No,” he said softly.
There was no cruelty in his voice. Just tiredness.
He raised his hand, keeping the distance between us.
“I need Marcus to tell you the truth. Today.”
I stopped walking.
“What?”
Andrew looked over my shoulder inside the house.
“Where is it?”
The joy that flooded me seconds earlier disappeared.
“He went out for a walk.”
“Then I will wait.”
He went in without asking permission.
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I closed the door behind him, unable to look away.
He looked so different from the teenager he remembered. The eye-catching skirts, the soft sweaters, the makeup she wore with a mixture of audacity and fear—everything had disappeared. His clothes were now simple, almost discreet.
He looked at me like he already knew what he was thinking.
“People always look at my clothes before they hear what I say.”
Shame took over my face.
“Forgive.”
“I didn’t come here to talk about my clothes.”
He looked at me straight.
“I’ve come because Marcus has been lying for a long time.”
My heart started to speed up.
“What did you lie about?”
“You’ll know when to come back.”
His voice was firm. There was no panic in him, no uncertainty. He went into the living room, but didn't sit.
I had a lot of questions.
Where was he gone?
Was he safe?
Did anyone love you?
Had you thought of me?
Did he hate me?
But I couldn't ask any of those questions. I was terrified that a wrong word would make him walk out that door again.
We remained silent until the front door opened.
Marcus came in carrying a paper bag from the bakery. As soon as he saw Andrew, he was paralyzed.
In all the years I was married to Marcus, I had never seen fear on her face.
The bag slipped from his hands.
The buns fell to the ground.
“You,” Marcus whispered.
Andrew didn't move.
“Tell him.”
Marcus recovered quickly, but not enough.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing.”
“Tell him.”
“There is nothing to say.”
Andrew put his hand in the jacket pocket and pulled out his phone.
“I was hoping you’d decide to do it yourself.” Marcus's face paled.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Neither of them responded.
They stared at each other, like two people who had been fighting the same unfinished war for years.
Marcus' voice hardened.
“You have to go.”
Andrew let out a dry, humorless laughter.
“You’ve been telling me for a long time.”
I looked at one to another.
“Someone who tells me what’s going on.”
Andrew finally turned to me.
“Mom, do you remember my eighteenth birthday?”
The question hit me deeply.
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