The Boy With My Eyes
A red crayon rolled across the aisle and bumped against my shoe just as I was going over the final figures on a $780 million acquisition.
I picked it up without a second thought.
A little boy was standing next to my seat, waiting for it.
He was no older than two and a half. Sandy-brown curls fell over his forehead, and his green eyes were locked on the crayon in my hand. When he grinned, a small dimple showed in his left cheek.
I had the same dimple.
“Mine,” he said, pointing.
“I figured.”
I gave it to him.
He looked at my face a moment longer, then turned to the row behind me.
“Mommy, that man has my eyes.”
My hand froze above my laptop.
A woman a few rows back raised her head.
Cassandra Hayes.
For three years, I had wondered why she’d vanished from my life.
Now she stood in the aisle of a Christmas Eve flight to Denver, a little girl balanced on her hip and fear written all over her face.
The girl had Cassandra’s dark hair.
She had my eyes too.
“Luke,” Cassandra said softly. “Come back here, sweetheart.”
The boy trotted over to her.
I shut my laptop.
Messages kept arriving from my CFO, two attorneys, and the acquisition team. If we didn’t sign by midnight, months of work could fall apart.
I opened none of them.
I walked over to Cassandra.
“How old are they?”
She pulled the little girl closer.
“Damon.”
“How old?”
Luke was drawing again, kneeling on the empty seat next to her.
Cassandra glanced at him before she answered.
“Two years and eight months.”
I worked out the math right away.
My stomach dropped.
“Cassandra.”
“Not here.”
“Are they mine?”
Her eyes slid shut for a moment.
Then she nodded.
I gripped the top of the seat in front of me, because the plane suddenly felt unsteady.
“Both of them?”
She looked at me as though the question itself wore her out.
“They’re twins.”
Luke glanced up from his paper.
“Mommy, does he know us?”
Neither of us replied.
The Letters I Never Read
When the flight attendants finished their service, I took the empty seat across the aisle.
Cassandra set Violet down next to Luke and handed both kids some crackers. Violet kept one hand clamped around a worn gray stuffed elephant.
I couldn’t take my eyes off them.
Luke ate his crackers by snapping each one precisely in half.
I used to do that as a kid.
When Violet got sleepy, she rubbed the satin edge of her elephant against her thumb.
A hundred questions crowded my head, but only one made it out.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Cassandra stared at me.
“I did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I wrote to you eleven times.”
I shook my head.
“I never got a letter.”
“I called your office. I emailed. I went there twice.”
“Then somebody would’ve told me.”
Cassandra’s expression shifted.
It wasn’t quite anger.
It was something wearier.
“That’s what I thought too.”
She reached beneath the seat and dragged a canvas tote toward her. From the bottom, under coloring books and kids’ snacks, she pulled out a large envelope.
Its corners were bent.For illustration purposes only
She passed it to me.
Letters were inside.
A few had been opened.
Most hadn’t.
Several were stamped RETURN TO SENDER.
I knew every address.
My old condo in Portland.
Prescott Technologies.
The temporary apartment I’d rented during an expansion.
One envelope was addressed straight to my executive office.
I opened it.
An ultrasound photograph slid out.
Two tiny shapes.
On the back, Cassandra had written a date.
Beneath it were four words.
There are two heartbeats.
I looked up at her.
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