Part 2 — The Box
A week before the wedding, Daniel’s mother, Eleanor, called me.
Eleanor and I had remained close after the divorce. She loved her son, but she had never defended what he did. When Daniel left, she came to my house with two bags of groceries, sat at my kitchen table, and cried.
“I raised him better than this,” she whispered.
I told her Daniel was responsible for Daniel. She remained a wonderful grandmother to Ethan. That mattered more to me than choosing sides.
When she called that evening, she asked if Ethan could spend Saturday afternoon with her.
“Of course.”
When he came home several hours later, he was carrying a small brown-paper package.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Something Grandma gave me.”
He carried it upstairs. I didn’t press.
Two days later, I noticed him working at the dining room table with photographs spread around him. There were pictures from baseball games. School concerts. His science fair. Birthdays. Christmas mornings.
I stopped behind him.
“What are you making?”
“A book.”
“For school?”
He shook his head.
“For Dad.”
I sat down beside him. Ethan closed the scrapbook before I could see much.
“Can I ask what it’s about?”
“You can.” He smiled slightly. “But I’m not going to tell you.”
I laughed despite myself.
“Fair enough.”
Then his expression became serious.
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“Grandpa used to say something about time. Do you remember?”
Daniel’s father, Thomas, had died eight months earlier after a short illness. Ethan adored him. Thomas had been the steady male presence in Ethan’s life during the worst months of the divorce. He attended games. Helped build Ethan’s science project. Taught him how to fish. Once, after Daniel missed a school concert, Thomas drove forty minutes just to take Ethan for ice cream afterward.
I thought for a moment.
“He said a lot of things about time.”
“The one about people.”
Then I remembered.
“Time is what we give the people we love.”
Ethan nodded.
“That one.”
He wrote it carefully on a piece of paper. I wanted to ask more. Instead, I kissed the top of his head and left him to work.
That was my first clue. I just didn’t realize it yet.
