***
At the back of my bedroom closet sat a box I hadn’t opened since Michael’s death. I brought it to the bed and removed the lid. Inside lay his notebook, a photograph, his broken watch, and some folded papers.
Nathan picked up a sketch of the rocking chair. Written in Michael’s handwriting across one corner were the words:
“For our little boy.”
He gently followed the letters with his finger.
“He made this for me?”
“Before you were born.”
“Why didn’t you show me?”
“Because I couldn’t bring myself to look through any of it.”
Nathan looked down at the page.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you, Mom.”
“I understand that. But you frightened us, and you pulled Cole into the lie.”
“I thought you’d make me stop going.”
I acknowledged the painful truth.
“I gave you reasons to think that.”
He noticed the photograph I held. In it, Michael stood in our kitchen holding a pie he’d badly burned.
