Our Past - Quackity

3

Alex spends the remainder of the day and a good part of the evening going over and over the words of Wilbur Watson, entangled in his own ideas.

He said Tommy. Tommy.

That is no Toby.

But... maybe Alex misspelled it on that note. Maybe his handwriting was not legible, maybe they decided to change it themselves? Maybe, and only maybe Alex misheard the name?

Maybe... maybe...

The resemblance to the name is too peculiar. And he also said Phil. Phil Watson.

Could it be him? Could it NOT be him? What are the chances?

The theory of the illegibility of his handwriting resonates strongly with Alex, so forgetting about his routine of making dinner (just for him) before getting ready for bed, Alex heads to his garage, where all the things that he has stored over the years lie. The boxes stacked in a corner, which have done nothing but accumulate dust are the man's destination.

Caring little about protecting himself from the fine particles of allergy, Alex opens the cardboard lids and begins his search into the past. He doesn't recall keeping any of his notebooks when he was in high school, at 15-16 years old, but perhaps fortune will smile at him and he can find something that contains his handwriting from almost twenty years ago.

Among the things, in a blue folder Alex finds a pile of old-looking papers. He knows that he is on the right track. The date of one, from almost thirteen years ago fills him with hope. The man continues to rummage through the objects, focusing on the papers and ignoring the notebooks that he knows are from when he was in his mid-twenties (not very long ago).

A softly green tinted, brittle-looking sheet with the marks of having been folded enough to fit in a pocket makes him stop right in his tracks. The title at the top, in big black letters of "Birth Certificate" snaps him back to that morning sixteen years ago, where he filled out that same form, with Toby's tiny body resting on his chest on the hospital gurney. He can almost feel the warm weight of his newborn son, dozing on his breast as he read with difficulty the small print on the paper, his gaze unfocused and his eyes puffy after a nurse had come in to wake him up to fill the certificate.

Some of the boxes are blank, Alex, then sixteen years old having left the spaces empty, not sure how to answer. The man scans through the information until he reaches the signatures. His signature, simply his name written with his normal calligraphy, Alexis Maldonado Ortiz, and next to his, on the neighboring signature line, written with an irregular pulse caused by nothing but alcohol is the name of Johnathan Schlatt.

Schlatt.

His first and only partner. The man who had young Alex stayed with him, would no doubt have ended up destroying him. Him and their son.

Tobías.

His eyes return to the top of the document.

Tobías Schlatt Maldonado.

Alex passes his finger over the name. He can almost feel through the ink how his hand was shaking as he wrote the name of his baby for the first time. Giving him two last names as his parents had done with him, despite only having met one of them.

The man observes the fold lines on the sheet. He could have lost this document forever the morning he gave up his baby. In the backpack full of things that he had packed for Tobías, his birth certificate had been one of many objects that Alex had shoved into the backpack in a rush, later realizing how stupid it would be to give all his personal information and that of his ex partner to someone whom he wanted to avoid at all costs and remain in anonymity. Taking a chance on the way to Phil Watson's house to pull the sheet out and put it in his pocket, the only thing other than the clothes he was wearing that day that Alex had taken from his old life.

A drop of water falls on the paper, and Alex rushes to remove it from the apparent leak, which comes from nothing more and nothing less than his own eyes. Tears soon trickle down his cheeks, the pain of memories from the worst stage of his life touching every sensitive nerve in his being and forcing tears from his eyes. Alex pushes aside the mess of papers he has just made in front of him to lean against the wall behind him and hides his face in his arms, crossed over his knees and allowing himself to sob in the solitude of his privacy, something he had promised himself not to do a long time ago.

Maybe there is hope, whispers a voice in his head. Maybe there is still a chance for me.

Alex is looking forward to the arrival of Thursday.