Silence fell upon the table like a heavy tablecloth.
Emma felt her heart clench painfully.
« We… we had some, » Eli repeated in a low voice.
Emma swallowed with difficulty.
« What happened to them? » she asked with an almost fragile gentleness.
Leo shrugged slightly, but his hard look fooled no one.
“We don’t really know,” he said. “We were in a park… a long time ago. We were playing near a pond. And then a man came and talked to us. He said he knew our mother.”
Emma’s hands began to tremble.
Boston.
The park.
The pond near the old wooden bridge.
Each word struck his memory like a lightning bolt.
Eli continued, his small voice hesitant:
« He told us that Mom had been in an accident and that he had to take us to see her. We believed him. »
Emma put a hand to her mouth to stifle a sob.
Leo was still looking at the table.
“After that… we don’t remember very well. We traveled a lot. Different cars, motels, different people. The man always said we should call him ‘uncle’. But he wasn’t nice.”
The food arrived at that moment. Steaming hamburgers, crispy fries, glasses of chocolate milk.
The boys pounced on it with such obvious hunger that Emma felt her heart break.
Có thể là hình ảnh về trẻ em
Six years.
Six years during which his sons had lived like that.
She watched them eat, trying to memorize every detail of their faces.
Then Eli looked up.
« Why are you looking at us like that? » he asked timidly.
Emma felt tears burning her eyes.
She took a deep breath.
« Because… » her voice trembled, « because I lost my two boys six years ago. »
The twins’ hands became still.
Leo frowned.
« Many people are losing their children, » he said cautiously.
Emma nodded.
« Yes. But my boys were twins. »
The silence thickens.
Eli murmured:
« Like us… »
Emma slowly took her phone out of her bag. Her fingers were shaking so much that she had to try twice to open the photo album.
She placed the phone on the table and slid it towards them.
A six-year-old photo appeared on the screen: two little boys laughing in a park, covered in chocolate ice cream, their arms around the neck of a blonde woman.
Leo leaned forward.
Then he froze.
Her eyes widened.
Eli gently placed his hamburger down.
« It’s… » he murmured.
Leo stared at the image as if the world had just cracked.
« We… we’ve already seen this photo, » he said slowly.
Emma felt her heart stop.
» Or ? »
Eli thinks.
« The man… the one who brought us… he was keeping an old bag. One day it fell and some photos fell out. He yelled at us not to look… but I saw one. »
Her small hand trembled as she pointed at the screen.
« That was the one. »
Emma’s tears finally began to flow.
She murmured almost voicelessly:
« Liam… Ethan… »
The boys exchanged a troubled look.
« Our names are Leo and Eli, » said Leo, but his voice was no longer steady.
Emma leaned gently forward.
« When Liam was five, he fell off his bike in the driveway, » she said softly. « He cut himself right here. »
She pointed to the scar above Eli’s eyebrow.
Eli touched the mark with his fingertips.
« And Ethan, » Emma continued, looking at Leo, « was afraid of thunderstorms. He always came to sleep in my bed when there was thunder. »
Leo’s face fell.
« How… do you know that? »
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