Chapter Text
There was a man.
There was a man crossing the street and his face made her pause.
He looked like that other man. The one that ruined her. The one that made her suffer so much. The one that put a ring on her finger and bowed to her parents, to her ancestors but didn’t love her enough to stay.
He looked like her.
His eyes were hers. The something stuck between round and almond shape. The dark ring of eyelashes that were short enough to make her use fake longer ones, but plentiful enough that no black eyeliner was really needed.
That mouth too. The plump lips, round and rosy. The upper lip slight darker and redder than the lower one.
He had some of that man’s features too. The rounder shape of the jaw and plump cheeks. The wavy and voluminous hair defying all hair products. The slight tan of the skin.
The way he moved. Like he had somewhere else to be.
Like he was destined to escape, to never stay.
There was a man on the street.
He was talking to someone on his cellphone and buying tanghulu from a street vendor.
He even smiled and rolled his eyes. Probably because the person on the other side of that call said something funny. The airplane keychain attached to it bouncing when he laughed.
There was a confidence in him. In the way he moved, the way he spoke.
Not like he was on the top of the world, but like he owned it.
Like he was it’s creator.
For a second, he saw her. Their eyes met.
Observer and observed.
His smiled dropped and he frowned. Then he turned around.
She felt the need to scream a long forgotten name. To test if he would react to it.
But she knew he wouldn’t.
There was a man in the street and no matter how much he looked like him, that man wasn’t the same person.
There was a man in the street and he wasn’t her son.
Because her son was dead.
Because he died in a box he dared to call an apartment.
Because he was cremated by the city hall. Like the destitute. Like the anonymous victim of a despicable crime.
Her son was electrocuted to death while surviving on junk food, writing in an outdated computer. Her son was found almost a month later, as the winter ended and with it the body defrosted.
Apparently he used to hide in second hand blankets and knit heavier ones to deal with the fact that using the heating system was too expensive.
The policeman on the city hall scrunched his nose as he retold her the details of her son was found.
There was a man in the street, walking away from her.
He looked healthy. Blushed plump cheeks. Back straight.
There were photos on her house, hidden among piles of old documents. In them, her dead son had sunken cheeks. He looked pale, grayish even. Dark circles around his eyes, bruises long healed littered around his body.
Her son had been starving for years, decades even.
Her son had been violated multiple times, maybe for many years.
Her son.
Her son.
Her son.
Even in death, he tried to not bother her.
She would have never known he was dead if not for her daughter trowing a tantrum and demanding to know about the name that showed up on her ancestry test.
Her son was dead and it took her five years to notice he never attempted to contact her again.
Five years to understand that her delayed alimony payment returned not because he refused it, but because there was no one to receive it.
Five years to notice that instead of feeling happy because she got rid of the burden of her first marriage, she should have looked for him. Should have called.
But she didn’t had his number saved on her cellphone.
No e-mail to write.
No social media to send a DM.
Because that was her son, but she never saw him as such.
There was a man on the street and by staring at him she saw how son should have been if he was born from her.
How he would be if not for her. For her presence, for her absence, for her existence.