Chapter 6
Matteo was the first to speak.
“Hi.”
Sebastian swallowed.
“Hello.”
Of all the speeches he had written and thrown away, that was what remained.
Hello.
Matteo glanced toward the chair.
“Were you waiting long?”
“No.”
Sebastian answered too quickly.
Matteo looked at the cold coffee.
Then at the clock.
“You’re bad at lying.”
Something flickered across Sebastian’s face.
“Apparently.”
Matteo almost smiled.
Almost.
They stood there another few seconds.
Then Sebastian gestured toward the chairs.
“Would you like to sit?”
“Sure.”
They sat.
Not beside each other.
One chair between them.
I moved toward the nurses’ desk on the far side of the lobby.
Close enough in case Sebastian looked like he needed help.
Far enough that I couldn’t hear every word.
But hospitals are quiet places.
Some sentences traveled.
“I’m sorry,” Sebastian said.
Matteo stared at the floor.
“For what?”
Sebastian looked surprised.
“There are several possibilities.”
“That’s what Ruth said.”
Sebastian glanced toward the elevators.
“She’s here?”
“Upstairs.”
“Right.”
Matteo rubbed his palms together.
Then he looked directly at Sebastian.
“I don’t want you to apologize for things I don’t understand yet.”
Sebastian nodded.
“That’s fair.”
“I wanted to meet you first.”
“Before deciding how angry to be?”
Matteo’s mouth twitched.
“Something like that.”
Sebastian accepted this without argument.
Good, I thought.
Very good.
Matteo leaned back.
“You look different.”
“From what?”
“My memory.”
“You were seven.”
“You were louder.”
That made Sebastian smile.
“I probably was.”
“You used to sing badly.”
The smile vanished.
“I never sang.”
Matteo stared at him.
“You did.”
“No.”
“You absolutely did.”
“What song?”
Matteo began humming quietly.
I couldn’t hear the melody from where I stood.
Sebastian’s face changed.
He looked down.
“Oh.”
“You remember.”
“It wasn’t singing.”
“What was it?”
“I was trying to get you to sleep.”
“You sang.”
“I made sounds.”
“Badly.”
“That part may be accurate.”
Matteo laughed.
One small laugh.
Sebastian looked at him like he had just been handed something precious.
They talked for nearly an hour.
Not about the hardest things.
Not yet.
They talked about school.
Books.
The fact that Matteo disliked olives and Sebastian had once convinced him they were grapes when he was five.
“You cried for forty minutes,” Sebastian said.
“I was betrayed.”
“You spit one across the kitchen.”
“You deserved it.”
“I did.”
Matteo asked about the volunteer program.
Sebastian told him the truth.
Not all of it.
Enough.
“I started after Celia died.”
Matteo nodded.
“Ruth told me.”
“I didn’t know how else to do something useful with… all of it.”
Matteo looked toward the elevator.
“The baby?”
“Elliot.”
“You know his name.”
“His mother named him last week.”
“You spend a lot of time with him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Sebastian thought before answering.
“Because he was alone when I met him.”
Matteo looked at his hands.
“So were you.”
Sebastian’s gaze sharpened.
“What?”
“When Mom died.”
Sebastian was silent.
Matteo immediately corrected himself.
“Celia. I called her Mom.”
“You should.”
“She was.”
“I know.”
Matteo nodded.
Another silence.
This one wasn’t uncomfortable.
Just full.
Then Matteo said, “Ruth told me you watched us at the park.”
Sebastian looked up slowly.
“She told you that?”
“Last night.”
“I didn’t know she saw me.”
“She didn’t. Celia did.”
That surprised him.
Matteo continued.
“She recognized you across the field.”
Sebastian stared at him.
“She never said anything.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“She told Ruth later that she thought you were giving me a choice.”
Sebastian’s jaw tightened.
“I wasn’t.”
“What were you doing?”
“Being afraid.”
Matteo considered that.
“Of what?”
“That you’d be better without me.”
A long pause.
Matteo nodded once.
“I wondered about that.”
Sebastian looked at him.
“I wondered if you stayed away because you didn’t care.”
“I cared every day.”
The words came out rougher than anything he had said so far.
Matteo’s eyes dropped.
Sebastian caught himself.
He softened his voice.
“But you didn’t know that.”
“No.”
“And that matters more than what I felt privately.”
Matteo looked at him again.
Something shifted.
Not forgiveness.
Not yet.
Trust, perhaps, in the smallest possible amount.
Enough to continue.
At two-thirty, Claire came downstairs.
She slowed when she saw Matteo.
He stood.
Claire looked at Sebastian.
“Is this…”
Sebastian nodded.
“Claire, this is Matteo.”
Matteo held out a hand.
“Hi.”
Claire shook it.
“I’ve heard about you.”
“Hopefully nothing from him.”
“Mostly from Ruth.”
“Better.”
Sebastian looked offended.
Claire sat.
“Elliot’s awake.”
Matteo glanced toward the elevators.
“The baby?”
“Yes.”
Claire smiled.
“Do you want to meet him?”
Matteo looked at Sebastian.
Not because he needed permission.
Because he was trying to understand why the question mattered.
Sebastian stood.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
Matteo hesitated.
Then he nodded.
“Okay.”
Upstairs, he washed his hands carefully.
Sebastian showed him how.
That moment nearly undid me.
Seventeen years earlier, Sebastian had learned how to scrub his hands so he could hold Matteo.
Now he stood beside a sink teaching Matteo the same routine.
Neither of them seemed to recognize the symmetry.
Or perhaps they did and didn’t know what to say.
Claire lifted Elliot from the incubator.
Matteo’s face softened immediately.
“He’s tiny.”
“Everyone says that,” Claire told him.
“He is.”
“He was tinier.”
Sebastian stood a step behind Matteo.
“He’s doing well.”
Matteo glanced at him.
“You know everything about him, don’t you?”
“Not everything.”
“How much does he weigh?”
“Four pounds, eleven ounces.”
Claire grinned.
“He knows everything.”
Matteo smiled.
Then Claire asked, “Want to sit?”
He looked uncertain.
“I’ve never held a baby.”
Sebastian’s voice came quietly from behind him.
“Neither had I.”
Matteo turned.
Sebastian was watching him carefully.
“You were twenty-four.”
“And terrified.”
“You didn’t look terrified in the pictures.”
“What pictures?”
Matteo froze.
Sebastian did too.
“What pictures?” he repeated.
Matteo looked toward Ruth.
She had just entered the room.
Ruth’s expression changed immediately.
She knew something had slipped out.
Matteo exhaled.
“Celia kept pictures.”
Sebastian stared at him.
“Of me?”
“Of us.”
Ruth stepped closer.
“Matteo…”
“No, it’s okay.”
Matteo looked at Sebastian.
“There’s a box.”
“What box?”
“At Ruth’s house.”
Ruth closed her eyes briefly.
Sebastian looked between them.
“What is in it?”
Matteo answered.
“Photos. Letters. Hospital papers. Stuff from when I was little.”
Sebastian said nothing.
Matteo continued.
“And recordings.”
The room became quiet.
“What recordings?” Sebastian asked.
“Cassette tapes.”
Ruth looked at him.
“Celia made them.”
May you like
“Of Matteo?”
“Of both of you.”
