Lost Love, Forgotten Son

s slumped in a hard plastic chair, the kind they have in places you never want to be. A police station. A man in

ave no record of a

. I remembered the look on their faces, a mixture of pity and annoyance. I remembered the crush

small hand fit perfectly in mine,

hers, they all swore they' d never seen me with a child. Not that day, not ever. My wife, Ava, had been called. She arrived, her

one. Me, gesturing wildly at an empty space beside me. Me, brea

never existed. The world had conspired to erase him, and in doing so, it had erased me too. I was just a crazy man, lost in a delu

I bl

ock on the nightstand read 7:05 AM. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, wild drumbeat. I knew

y. The day it

ashed over me, but I ignored it. I could hear sounds from the kitchen. The clink of a

set. I didn' t know how or why, but I was back. And this time, I had every

e small table, kicking his feet in a high chair that was almost too small for him now, was Leo. He had a smudge of jam on

up at me a

add

he grunted in protest. I buried my face in his neck, breathing in hi

quizzical smil

appy to see us this

hat other timeline with horrifying clarity. The empty photo albums on my phone. The blank look on Ava' s face as she denied our son' s existence. The wa

ders. He immediately went back to his cereal, b

arten today," I said, my v

k, a sleek grey pantsuit. She usually handled the morn

nd. You have that demo

too forcefully. "I' l

gaze must have been unsettling. She saw a husband who was a little too

id. If you'

My priorities had been violently rearranged. Nothing else matt

e. They would say I was unstable, that I was projecting my own issues onto a non-

of Leo and straightened his little jacket. H

y?" I asked, my voic

!" he

down at our joined hands, his tiny fingers wrapped around my index finger. I ma

s time. I will burn the whole world d