I knocked on the front door.
It opened almost immediately. I smiled reflexively as I looked up. A young man stood in the doorway.
My smile dropped. The pie did, too — it fell from my hands and crashed at my feet, but I barely noticed.
All I could see was that young man’s face, a face I had spent ten years learning to live without seeing.
A young man stood in the doorway.
“Oh, my God! Are you okay?” He moved forward carefully, avoiding the broken shards of the plate.
“Daniel?”
“Ma’am? Did it burn you? Do you have some kind of health problem?”
He was looking right into my eyes. There was no mistaking it. He had slightly curly hair and a sharp chin, just like Daniel. But the main feature that stood out was his odd-colored eyes, one blue and one brown.
Heterochromia. Just like Daniel, who had inherited the condition from his grandmother.
I didn’t know how it was possible, but there wasn’t a doubt in my mind: this young man was my son!
The main feature that stood out was his odd-colored eyes.
“Ma’am?” He placed a hand on my shoulder.
I inhaled, and it felt like the first breath I’d taken in a while.
There was only one question that mattered.
“How old are you?” I asked.
He tilted his head. “What? Uh, I’m 19.”
Nineteen. The same age Daniel would’ve been.
There was only one question that mattered.
“Tyler? Is everything okay? I heard a crash…” a woman’s voice called out from somewhere inside the house.
The young man turned. “I’m fine, Mom. But there’s a woman here; she dropped something.”
Mom. Hearing him say that word to someone else was the strangest feeling.
He started picking up the broken pieces of the plate. A woman appeared in the doorway behind him.
The initial shock was fading now. I forced a smile.
“I’m so sorry about the mess,” I said. “My son. He… if he’d gotten a chance to grow up, he would’ve looked very much like your boy.”
Hearing him say that word to someone else was the strangest feeling.
Tyler (he was Tyler, not Daniel, unless by some miracle he was Daniel) frowned and straightened up. “Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss. Don’t worry about the mess. It’s no problem.”
But the woman went completely still, like a mouse that’s just realized the cat is watching it. She looked from me to her son… and then to his eyes.
“Sorry for your loss, but you need to leave. We have a lot to do!”
Then she stepped forward, pulled Tyler back into the house, and shut the front door right in front of me.
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