He turned around and saw me.
Every drop of color drained from his face.
The carving knife trembled in his hand.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Is this your husband?” I whispered.
The pregnant woman blinked at me, confused.
Then she actually laughed.
“God, no! Ethan? My husband?” She shook her head.
“No, no, he’s not my husband. He’s just here for my son.”
My brain couldn’t process her words.
“Ethan.” My voice came out sharper than I intended. “What the hell is going on?”
He looked like he might throw up.
Before he could answer, another man emerged from the hallway.
Thin, pale, with shoulders hunched forward like he was carrying something impossibly heavy.
In his arms, he held a small boy, maybe seven years old… with a nasal cannula and eyes that looked too old for his face.
The man’s voice was quiet.
“Ethan, he’s asking for you.”
He carefully passed the toddler to the woman and took the frail boy into his arms with such gentleness it made my chest ache.
The boy’s thin fingers clutched Ethan’s shirt.
“Uncle Ethan… you came.”
“Of course I came, buddy. I promised, didn’t I?”
I stood frozen, my camera hanging uselessly from my neck.
The woman touched my arm.
“Are you okay? You look like you’re about to faint.”
I stared at her, then at Ethan, then at the children.
“Who is he to you? Why is he here?”
Her expression shifted from confusion to understanding to something that looked like pity.
“Anna…
Ethan is here because of Oliver. My son. His godson.”
We moved onto the porch.
The woman (she told me to call her Claire) wrapped a blanket around my shoulders.
I was numb.
“I think we need to talk,” she said softly.
“And the kids don’t need to hear this.”
I nodded, unable to form words.
She sat down beside me, her hand resting on her pregnant belly.
“My brother, Mark, was Ethan’s best friend. They grew up together… same street and school, inseparable from the time they were five years old.”
“Were?”
“Mark died three years ago.” Claire’s voice cracked. “Brain cancer.
It was fast and brutal, and it destroyed all of us.”
“Before he died, he made Ethan promise to be here every Thanksgiving. It was their holiday… they’d celebrated it together since they were kids.”
My heart raced.
“Why didn’t he tell me?” The words came out broken.
Claire’s eyes glistened with tears.
“Because it got worse. Oliver… the little boy you saw… he has leukemia.
He’s been fighting it for two years, and this fall, it came back.”
She stopped and swallowed hard.
“The doctors said this Thanksgiving might be his last good one.”
The world narrowed to a single point.Continue reading…
