I could see Robert beside the pool.
That was the memory.
Not the beach.
Not the water.
The pool.
I had not thought about that distinction in years.
At the time, everything had happened so quickly that I had not stopped to ask why he was standing there.
I was looking for Matthew.
Nothing else seemed important.
Now, with the photograph in front of me, I found myself returning to Robert's position.
He had been watching.
That was what I remembered most clearly.
Other people were frightened.
People were reacting to Matthew's disappearance.
Robert had stood apart from the search.
I tried to picture his face.
I could remember where he had been.
I could remember that he was not calling out.
But I could not honestly say what he had been thinking.
That mattered.
I did not want to turn an incomplete memory into proof.
For eleven years, I had believed Robert might have been overwhelmed.
Shock could make people behave strangely.
Some shouted.
Some moved without knowing where they were going.
Others went quiet.
I had seen enough grief to know there was no single way a person reacted to fear.
That was how I had explained Robert's behavior.
He must have been stunned.
He must not have known what to do.
It had seemed reasonable.
Or perhaps it had been easier than asking questions.
I could not tell anymore.
I looked again at Matthew's little red bucket.
The photograph had captured an ordinary moment.
A child enjoying himself.
An adult standing nearby.
Nothing in that picture told me what happened afterward.
That was what made it difficult.
I knew what I remembered.
I did not know what it meant.
I leaned toward the photograph.
Robert's expression belonged to the hours before Matthew disappeared.
He looked relaxed.
He looked like someone spending an ordinary day near the beach.
I remembered his laughter.
I remembered how readily I had accepted his reassurance.
There had been no argument between us in the moment shown by the photograph.
No warning that I recognized.
No reason for me to think Matthew would disappear.
I had gone upstairs to deal with the excursion.
I had expected to return to the same ordinary day.
Instead, I came back to a situation I could not understand.
Matthew was gone.
People were searching.
And Robert was standing near the pool.
I kept circling that memory.
I could not remember him running toward the water.
I could not remember him joining the others who were calling out.
I remembered him looking on.
That did not prove he knew anything.
I told myself that repeatedly.
But it did leave me with something I had failed to ask.
Why was he not searching?
I wondered what I would have thought if I had noticed his behavior on the day itself.
Would I have questioned him?
Would I have demanded an explanation?
Or would I have been too frightened to focus on anything but finding Matthew?
I knew the answer to that last question.
I had been terrified.
There had been no room in my mind for anything else.
I had not been studying Robert.
I had been looking for my son.
That was why I had accepted the explanation of shock.
It gave Robert's behavior a reason.
It let me move on to the next urgent thing.
Back then, I had needed everyone to be trying to help.
Looking back, I was not certain everyone had been.
I hated thinking that.
It felt unfair to judge a person from one memory.
Eleven years had passed.
Memories could change.
Details could become sharper simply because a person wanted them to explain something.
I knew all of that.
But I also knew the difference between remembering something and inventing it.
I remembered Robert by the pool.
I remembered other people searching.
And I remembered that I had never found it necessary to question the difference.
Until now.
I raised my eyes from the picture.
Ramirez was sitting across from me.
I wanted to ask about Robert.
I wanted to know whether the photograph had led Ramirez to something I had missed.
But another question mattered more.
The one that had mattered every day since Matthew disappeared.
I no longer wanted to spend another moment studying Robert's expression.
I wanted to know where my son was.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: The Photograph Brought Back Robert’s Strange Behavior on the Day Matthew Vanished, but Ramirez Had an Answer I Needed More
For Eleven Years, I Believed My Son Had Disappeared Into the Ocean, Until an Old Photograph Made Me Question Everything
Part 2 of 20
