Matthew was still sitting in the same chair.
The cup of water was in front of him.
He looked up when I entered.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then he moved the empty chair slightly away from the table.
I understood what he meant.
He wanted me to sit down.
That small gesture meant more than I knew how to explain.
Eleven years earlier, I would never have needed permission to sit beside my son.
Now I was grateful for it.
I sat carefully.
Ramirez remained near the doorway.
"Would you like me to stay?"
Matthew looked at me.
I looked back at him.
"It's your choice," I said.
Matthew thought for a moment.
"Just us is okay."
Ramirez nodded.
He stepped outside and closed the door.
I watched Matthew pick up his cup.
He took a little water.
Then he set it down again.
"You were talking about the beach?"
I nodded.
"Yes."
"About what happened?"
"About what I remember."
Matthew looked toward the window.
"Did you remember anything new?"
I hesitated.
I wanted to tell him about Robert standing near the pool.
I wanted to explain why that memory had begun troubling me.
But Ramirez had been careful about something important.
We could not allow my memories to become Matthew's memories.
Especially when he was already uncertain about what he remembered from that day.
"Just some details I hadn't thought about properly," I said.
Matthew nodded.
He did not push me.
I wondered whether he was used to people holding information back from him.
That thought made me uncomfortable.
I did not want to become another person deciding what he was ready to know.
But there was a difference between telling him the truth and filling his mind with suspicions.
I was still learning that difference.
Matthew leaned forward.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Anything."
He studied my face.
"Did you stop looking for me?"
I felt the question in my chest.
It was not angry.
That almost made it worse.
He sounded as though he genuinely wanted to know.
I looked down at my hands.
"No."
He waited.
"I stopped knowing where to look."
That was the closest I could come to explaining it.
For years, I had been trapped between hoping and accepting what everyone believed.
I had wanted him alive.
I had also been told that he was gone.
Living with those two things had changed me.
Matthew rubbed his thumb along the cup.
"So you didn't just forget?"
I looked at him.
"Never."
The word came out too quickly.
I slowed down.
"I never forgot you."
He nodded.
But I could tell the answer had not settled everything.
I wanted to reach across the table.
I wanted to place my hand over his.
Instead, I kept still.
"Matthew, I don't know what you were told about me."
He looked away.
"And I don't want to guess."
He returned his eyes to mine.
"But whatever you heard, I want you to be able to ask me."
He swallowed.
"Even if it's bad?"
"Especially then."
We sat quietly.
He rubbed the side of his finger.
I remembered that movement from our first conversation.
It was becoming familiar.
Not the way a father's knowledge of his child should have been familiar.
But it was something.
Matthew looked toward the door.
"Do you hate Robert?"
I went still.
I had been preparing myself for questions about the ocean.
Questions about why I had left him.
Questions about why I had believed he was dead.
I had not expected that name.
"Why do you ask?"
Matthew shrugged.
"His picture."
I nodded slowly.
"Ramirez showed it to you?"
"Yeah."
I thought about the photograph lying on the other table.
Robert smiling.
Matthew holding the bucket.
I took a breath.
"I don't know what I feel about Robert right now."
Matthew watched me.
"Is that bad?"
"No."
I paused.
"Or maybe it is. I don't know."
He looked down.
"I remember somebody being there."
My chest tightened.
"At the children's club?"
He nodded.
"But I can't remember everything."
"That's okay."
He made a frustrated sound.
"You keep saying that."
I looked at him.
"Because I mean it."
Matthew leaned back.
For a moment, he seemed older than I expected.
Then he looked young again.
Confused.
Tired.
Trying to understand something he had never been given a chance to understand properly.
"I don't want to remember something just because somebody tells me," he said.
I nodded.
"Neither do I."
That answer surprised him.
I could see it.
I told him about the problem I had been facing.
Not Robert's behavior.
Not my suspicions.
Just the difficulty of separating an old memory from the explanation I had carried for years.
"Sometimes I remember what happened," I said.
"And sometimes I remember what I was told happened."
Matthew looked at me.
"How do you know the difference?"
I took a moment.
"Sometimes I don't."
He stared at the table.
Then he gave a small nod.
"Me too."
Those two words stayed with me.
I had spent eleven years believing I understood the worst part of our story.
I thought the worst part was losing him.
But sitting across from Matthew, I began to understand something else.
He had questions about his own life.
Questions that belonged to him.
And he had been carrying those questions without me.
I could not repair that with an apology.
I could not repair it by promising that everything would be fine.
I could only tell him the truth.
Even when the truth was incomplete.
Matthew touched the cup again.
"Do you remember what I was like?"
I smiled before I could stop myself.
"Yes."
He looked curious.
"Really?"
"Of course."
He glanced down.
"What was I like?"
I thought of the little boy in the photograph.
The red bucket.
The way he could become completely occupied with something small.
I did not want to pretend I remembered every minute of his childhood.
But there were things I knew.
"You liked having something to carry around."
Matthew smiled faintly.
"Like the bucket?"
"Like the bucket."
He laughed.
It was brief.
Almost embarrassed.
But I heard it.
And for one impossible second, I felt the distance between us narrow.
I wanted to hear that laugh again.
I wanted to ask him to tell me about everything he liked now.
But I did not want to turn our conversation into an interview.
So I let the moment remain what it was.
A father.
A son.
A small shared memory.
Matthew looked at me again.
"Do you still think about that day?"
"Every day."
He nodded.
"Me too. Sometimes."
I felt my smile disappear.
I wanted to ask what those memories were like.
But he had already told me how uncertain he felt about them.
I decided not to push.
Instead, I asked a different question.
"Would you rather talk about something else?"
He thought about it.
"Maybe."
"All right."
He looked toward the window.
"What happens now?"
I had no answer prepared.
That was the truth.
I had been so focused on reaching him that I had barely considered what would follow.
I knew I wanted him safe.
I knew I wanted him in my life.
But I also knew he was no longer a little boy I could simply take by the hand.
He had lived eleven years beyond my knowledge.
Whatever happened next would involve his choices, too.
"I don't know every part of it yet," I admitted.
Matthew watched me.
"But I'd like to keep talking to you."
He nodded.
"I think I'd like that."
I looked at him.
"Really?"
He gave me a small smile.
"Yeah."
I felt tears coming again.
I looked away before they fell.
I did not want every conversation between us to end with me crying.
Matthew noticed anyway.
"It's okay," he said.
I laughed quietly.
"Now you're saying it."
He smiled.
This time, the smile stayed a little longer.
We sat there without speaking.
And for once, the silence did not feel like an absence.
It felt like two people learning how to be in the same room.
I had spent eleven years trying to understand how Matthew disappeared.
Now I had another responsibility.
I needed to learn who he had become.
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: Matthew Wanted to Know Why Everyone Believed the Ocean Had Taken Him, and I Had to Admit How Little I Really Knew
For Eleven Years, I Believed My Son Had Disappeared Into the Ocean, Until an Old Photograph Made Me Question Everything
Part 9 of 20
