“I knew you’d come.” The voice chilled me to the bone.
I turned around.
And there he was.
Not the boy I remembered, but a man.
Delgado, with his mother’s eyes, but with a calmness I didn’t recognize.
His gaze held no hatred, no anger. Only a serenity that hurt more than any scream.
“Ethan…” I whispered.
He nodded, with a slight smile.
“Hello, Mr. Kapoor.”
That “gentleman” pierced me. He wasn’t Dad anymore . He never had been, really.
“I thought you were dead,” I said without thinking.
“I was,” he replied, shrugging. “In many ways. But I suppose small deaths also teach you how to live.”
I didn’t know what to say.
He led me to a small private room behind the gallery.
On a table were folders, sketches, and photographs.
“I want you to see this,” he said.
They were paintings, portraits, and newspaper clippings.
One showed a barefoot teenager in a shelter. Another, a young man handing out donations at a soup kitchen. Then there were photos of exhibitions, grants, and awards.
“I slept in train stations for two years,” he told me without drama. “Then I met an art teacher who let me draw in her studio at night, in exchange for cleaning the floor. She was the first person to call me son .”