“You can’t just come in here,” Lucas said, his voice trembling. “You can’t just walk into our lives after 17 years and—”
“Dad,” Matias touched his arm gently. “Let’s hear him out.”
Elijah spoke of his sister — Matias’s mother — of her struggles, her disappearance, and her deathbed confession just weeks ago.
“She was young and scared,” Elijah explained, his perfectly manicured hands clasped in his lap. “Our father wouldn’t have understood.
She ran away with you after her boyfriend, your dad, dumped her, hoping you could have a better life than she could provide at that time.”
“So she left me on a doorstep?” Matias’s voice cracked. “Like I was NOTHING?”
“She watched,” Elijah said softly. “She watched Lucas take you in.
Watched from afar as you grew. She chose this house because she’d seen Lucas with his wife, before. She knew you’d be loved here.
She told us everything when we found her, after 17 exhausting years.”
“You have to understand,” Elijah continued, turning to Lucas, “he’s all we have left of her. And there’s so much waiting for him. The best schools, connections, opportunities.
“This life,” Lucas interrupted, his voice fierce, “has been filled with more love than any luxurious mansion could hold.”
“Dad, please,” Matias whispered, squeezing his hand.
“He’s right though, isn’t he?” Lucas’s voice broke. “You deserve more than fish nets and vegetable gardens. More than an old man’s company.”
“He deserves a better life,” Elijah chimed in.
“I want to go,” Matias said softly after a long silence.
Lucas turned, stung.
The words felt like Maria dying all over again.
“Just to know them. To understand.” Matias’s eyes pleaded for understanding. “I’ll come back, Dad.
I promise. I need to know where I came from to know where I’m going.”
“Of course you will.” Lucas forced the words past the lump in his throat. “This is your home.
It always will be.”
The goodbye was quick, too quick for 17 years of love. Lucas helped pack a bag, his hands shaking as he folded Matias’s favorite blue sweater, the one he’d saved three months of fishing money to buy.
“The garden,” Matias said suddenly, pausing at the door. “Don’t let it die while I’m gone.
Mom’s roses especially.”
Lucas nodded, not trusting his voice.
“I’ll call every day,” Matias promised, hugging him fiercely. “Every single day. And I’ll be back before you know it.”
Lucas stood in the doorway, watching the red Mercedes disappear, taking his heart with it.
The last thing he saw was Matias’s face turned backward, watching him through the rear window, pressing his hand against the glass.
Days blurred together. And the silence around Lucas grew heavier with each passing week.
Matias’s calls came regularly at first, full of wonder at his new world.
Then, less frequently, shorter, until they felt like conversations with a stranger.
The vegetables ripened and died on the vine. Lucas couldn’t bear to pick them up without Matias’s help. Even the chickens seemed to miss him.
Rosa wouldn’t lay eggs for days, and the others pecked listlessly at their feed.
“He’s not coming back, is he, girl?” Lucas murmured to Rosa one morning. “Can’t blame him. Who’d choose this hut over the castle they’re offering him?”Continue reading…
