Chapter 17
Five years after Elena walked into my engagement reception carrying a scorched ultrasound, we returned to the planetarium for Leo’s fifth birthday.
He wore a paper astronaut helmet.
Terrible craftsmanship.
Loved it.
Elena stood beside me.
Not my wife.
Not yet.
Maybe eventually.
Our relationship had grown without deadlines.
That mattered.
Leo dragged me toward a small telescope.
“Dad.”
“Yes?”
“Moon.”
“I know where it is.”
“No. Look.”
Apparently the moon had changed.
I looked.
Same moon.
Still obeyed.
Behind us, Elena laughed.
On a nearby table sat a copy of the old ultrasound photograph.
Not the scorched original.
That stayed in Elena’s private box.
Her choice.
Leo had seen the copy once and asked:
“That me?”
“Yes.”
“Why black and white?”
No answer good enough.
Five years earlier, Victoria held that image over a flame because she believed destroying proof could destroy consequence.
Preston tried to move Elena out of my life because he believed distance could solve inconvenient truth.
I believed silence meant choice.
We were all wrong.
People do not disappear simply because powerful adults agree not to look.
Leo pulled my sleeve.
“You’re not looking.”
I adjusted the telescope.
A bright white circle filled the lens.
“Now I am.”
That sentence almost made me laugh.
Years earlier, everything changed because I finally looked at a burned photograph someone had tried to make me ignore.
Now my son simply wanted me to look at the moon.
No hidden pregnancy.
No intercepted message.
No future being designed around him.
Just a child impatient with his father.
I stepped aside.
“Your turn.”
Leo pressed his eye to the lens.
Elena rested her shoulder lightly against mine.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing decided.
May you like
Good.
For once, the future could remain unwritten.
