PART 17
Five years passed,
and the scars of the past became foundation stones for a beautiful,
quiet life.
The family had moved to a smaller town,
away from the noise of the city,
living in a house with a large backyard.
Ethan was now seven years old,
a bright,
energetic boy with his mother's creative eyes and his father's determination.
One sunny Saturday afternoon,
Ethan was helping Ryan clean out the storage closet in the hallway.
Among the old boxes of books and winter gear,
Ethan pulled out a dusty,
leather-bound album.
He opened it,
flipping through the pages until he stopped at a photograph from long ago.
It was a picture of Ryan standing in a high-rise office in Aspen,
looking sharp,
expensive,
and completely unsmiling.
"Daddy,
who is this?"
Ethan asked,
pointing his small finger at the image of the stranger.
Ryan stopped what he was doing,
walking over to sit on the floor beside his son.
He looked at the picture of his former self,
feeling a strange disconnect,
as if looking at a character from a movie.
"That was me,
buddy,"
Ryan said quietly,
taking the album into his lap.
"Before you were born,
and when you were very little,
that was how I used to look."
Ethan frowned,
looking closely at the stern expression on the face in the photograph.
"You look sad,
Daddy,
and you aren't smiling at all."
Ryan smiled gently at his son's innocence,
wrapping an arm around the boy's shoulders.
"I wasn't sad,
Ethan,
I was just confused about what mattered in life."
"What matters now?"
Ethan asked,
looking up with big,
curious eyes.
Ryan squeezed him tight,
"You do,
May you like
and Mommy does,
and being right here with you."
