Truth Behind Loss

Flash Fiction

    I walk into a light blue room and was greeted with a child's laugh. I look down upon my little boy playing with his train set that my father had made for him. The boy’s auburn hair looks golden in the afternoon sunlight. Everything about my four year old son is perfect. His face was sprinkled with freckles, or as he liked to say, little kisses from the sun. Those big brown eyes of his could get anything out of me if he tried hard enough. He was on the scrawny side and his energy levels were enough to wipe out an army.

           I was always hesitant about becoming a father. I didn't think I could create strong bonds with a child if they weren't mine, but the second we laid eyes on him three years ago, we knew. A week later he came home with us and our family was complete.

          The love of my life is sitting across from him, asking what the conductor’s name is. It didn’t seem like something that would be important. Neither of them noticed me standing in the door, but I didn’t mind. It was beautiful to watch the two most important people of my life like this. They were my whole life. It's true what people say, parenthood changes you. I can't think of a world without this perfect angel, and life before him seems like a lifetime ago.

I walked over to the bed, trying not to disturb their time. Our boy was none the wiser about my existence in the room, but his papa knew immediately, just smiling at me. I raised a finger to keep him from giving the distracted boy any hints that I was watching. It was sweet bliss.

It wasn't long before he caught on to us though and turned around. His eyes lit up as he ran to me, yelling daddy. He never reached me. I closed my eyes, waiting.

A pair of arms wrapped around me. When I reopened my eyes, now filled with tears, the room was no longer showered in sunlight, but from the bulb in the middle of the ceiling. The blue walls seemed less bright and the room had a eerie feeling to it. Nothing had been touched in weeks. A small layer of dust was starting to collect, but we dared not touch anything. It was all so fragile in our minds.

Everything that happened came rushing back. The fear, the despair, the emptiness. He was just four. He had nothing to do with it, he couldn't have understood. Who I love doesn't hurt anyone and yet our small precious boy was dragged into it anyways. It's a terrible thing to lose someone just because of how you live your life, trust me. We were good parents. He had everything he could have dreamed of. We were no different from any other parents, so why did our gender matter?

We sat there; him holding me. I couldn't think, only cried into him as he rubbed circles into my back. It seemed like forever that we sat like that. When I looked up, he also had tears running down his face. I wiped them off and we just stared at each other for a bit. There were no words for what we were feeling, we already knew. It would be another long night, and probably not the last for a long time.