A teenage boy stood in the doorway.
For a moment I simply smiled out of habit.
Then I looked at his face.
My smile vanished.
The pie slipped from my hands and shattered on the porch, but I barely noticed.
Because all I could see was him.
His hair.
His chin.
His face.
A face I had spent ten years learning to live without.
“Oh my God! Are you okay?” the boy asked quickly, stepping around the broken plate.
“Daniel?” I whispered.
He blinked.
“Ma’am?”
“Did it burn you? Are you feeling alright?”
He looked directly into my eyes.
And that’s when I saw it.
One blue eye.
One brown eye.
Heterochromia.
Exactly like Daniel.
My son had inherited it from my mother.
And suddenly I couldn’t breathe.
Because the boy standing in front of me looked exactly like my child would have looked if he had lived.
“Ma’am?” he said gently, touching my shoulder.
I inhaled sharply.
Only one question mattered.
“How old are you?”
He tilted his head in confusion.
“Uh… I’m nineteen.”
Nineteen.
The exact age Daniel would be today.
