“Mom…”
The world shook.
I threw myself against him, sobbing like I hadn’t sobbed the day he disappeared. I touched his face, his arms, his chest, his warm skin. I wanted to reassure myself that he was real. That he had a temperature. That he was breathing. That he wasn’t a hallucination born of my grief.
“Where were you? Why? Why did you do this to me?” I stammered between tears.
He closed his eyes, as if to block out the pain.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I couldn’t come back sooner.”
We sat down.
He lowered his voice.
“Tell me exactly what Valérie told you about the night I ‘die.’”
I repeated what she’d been telling me for two years. About a trip to sea on a yacht she’d rented for a friend’s birthday. Too much champagne. A stupid argument. A reckless move. A fall. Darkness. Waves. The impossibility of saving him. The search. The body that was never found.
Every sentence I uttered burned within me more and more.
Elias clenched his fists.
“It’s all a lie.”
I looked at him, uncomprehending.
His jaw trembled.
