A Call From Seven Years Later

When he came back, I noticed red scratches on his neck.

I asked how he'd gotten them.

His eyes drifted somewhere off to the side, but there was a strange, knowing little smile at the corner of his mouth.

“A stray cat scratched me overseas. Sharp claws.”

I believed him at the time.

Now I understood. Those were marks Rachel Butler had left on him.

“Miss, what's wrong? Are you crying?”

The boy's voice came through the phone and pulled me back.

I lifted my head and looked at his face.

This was Simon Weiss and Rachel Butler's child.

He had Simon's brow and eyes, Rachel's mouth.

I swallowed the taste of blood back down my throat and asked, my voice gone hoarse.

“Sweetie, will you tell me about your mom and dad? I think I might know them.”

The boy tilted his head. ：“You know my mommy and daddy?”

I nodded. ：“Aren't they Simon Weiss and Rachel Butler? I was their classmate in college.”

His eyes lit up, and he asked, a little excited, ：“Then do you know Aunt Felicia Henson?”

I froze.

Felicia Henson.

That was my name.

My nails dug into my palm. I worked to keep my voice level.

“Why ask about her? Is she someone special?”

The boy lowered his head, fiddling with the toy in his hands. His voice got smaller.

“She was a really good friend of my mom and dad. But she died seven years ago.”

“Died?” I repeated it, not believing it.

“Mhm. Mommy and Daddy tell me about her a lot. Every year they go to the cemetery to see her, and they hug this one headstone and cry, and they say they're so sorry, that they let her down.”

The cold went straight through me.

Seven years ago. That was 2026. That was this year.

Simon faked his death, Rachel betrayed me — and then I died?

I fought to hold my shaking body still and forced the words out.

“How did she die?”

The boy shook his head. ：“Daddy won't let me ask. Miss, do you know her?”

I turned away from it. ：“Are your mom and dad happy together?”

The boy nodded, cheerful again.

“My daddy loves my mommy so much!”

And then he started listing them off, one after another, like treasures.

“When Mommy was pregnant with me, she wanted shrimp dumplings from the South Side in the middle of the night. Daddy didn't even think about it, he just got in the car and drove halfway across the city to buy them, and he kept them in a warmer so they were still hot when he got home.”

“Mommy doesn't like rainy days. So Daddy built a big glass greenhouse in our yard, and when it rains Mommy sits inside and not one drop touches her.”

“And one time Mommy broke an old wooden clip by accident and cried and cried. Daddy found the best craftsman in the whole world, and it took months to fix it, and now it's locked up in the safe.”

With every word he said, the knife in my chest sank another inch.

I thought about how things had been between me and Simon.

The night I burned up with fever, I called him.

He said he was busy with a project and told me to drink hot water and take my medicine on my own.

I only found out later that Rachel had gotten drunk at a bar that night, and he'd gone to pick her up.

I'd always wanted a house with a yard. He said it was a waste of money, impractical.

Then he turned around and built Rachel a glass greenhouse.

That wooden clip, I'd seen it too.

Some cheap thing Rachel had grabbed on a whim back in high school.

And the protection charm I'd stayed up nights to embroider for him with my own hands.

He tossed it into the corner of a drawer, and later, when it was taking up space, he threw it straight in the trash.

He said, ：“I don't believe in this stuff. And it looks cheap.”

The camera followed the boy's movements and swept across that wedding portrait again.