Is That Mom

Part 9 of Chapter 1

Chapter 1:

The Weight of the Past

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Part 9:

Ethan’s Confrontation with His Father

Ethan hesitated before dialing his father’s number, his thumb hovering over the call button. It had been months since their last conversation, a brief, stilted exchange that had ended in silence rather than resolution. In the years since his parents’ separation, Ethan had learned to brace himself for these calls, to expect the cold distance that Robert’s voice always carried. But this time felt different—he wasn’t just calling to check in or ask about his half-siblings. He had something real, something urgent, to confront his father with.

He pressed the button, and the phone rang, each tone a sharp, piercing echo in the quiet of his room. Ethan’s heart pounded, the anticipation twisting his stomach into knots. Finally, the line clicked, and Robert’s voice came through, calm and almost indifferent.

“Ethan? It’s been a while,” Robert said, his tone polite but lacking warmth. Ethan could hear the faint murmur of voices in the background, a distant laugh—likely Robert’s wife, Susan, or one of Ethan’s half-siblings. The sounds of a life that had moved on without him.

“Yeah, it has,” Ethan replied, trying to keep his voice steady. “I, uh, I got a letter yesterday. From someone who said she knew Mom.”

There was a pause, and Ethan could almost hear his father’s posture stiffening over the line, a subtle shift in the air. “What are you talking about?” Robert asked, his voice noticeably tighter. “Who sent you a letter?”

“Her name is Sarah,” Ethan said, swallowing the nervous lump in his throat. “She said she knew Mom before she disappeared. She wants to meet me, talk about her. I thought… I thought you might know something.”

Silence. It stretched out, taut and heavy, until it became almost unbearable. Ethan listened to the faint crackle of the line, hoping for some kind of response, but when Robert finally spoke, his voice was cold, defensive. “Ethan, I’ve told you before—there’s no point in dredging up the past. It won’t change anything. Your mother… she’s gone, and we need to accept that.”

“But that’s just it,” Ethan said, his frustration spilling over. “I don’t know why she’s gone. I don’t know what happened to her, and no one will tell me! You act like I’m supposed to just move on, but how can I do that when I don’t even understand why she left?”

Robert’s sigh crackled through the phone, long and weary, as if he were carrying the weight of a thousand arguments he didn’t want to have. “I understand that you’re hurting, Ethan. But some things are better left buried. Trust me on this.”

Ethan clenched his jaw, his hands tightening around the phone. He had heard this line before, too many times to count, and he was tired of it. “No, Dad. I can’t just ‘trust you’ when all you do is shut me out. I deserve to know the truth, even if it’s hard. You owe me that much.”

“I don’t owe you anything,” Robert snapped, his tone sharp enough to cut. “You think I haven’t tried to make sense of this? I have. But obsessing over it won’t bring her back. She left, Ethan. She chose to leave, and there’s nothing more to it.”

Ethan’s breath hitched, the sting of those words settling deep in his chest. “You don’t know that,” he said, his voice shaking with barely contained anger. “You don’t know why she left because you never bothered to find out. You just… moved on. Started a new family, and left me to figure it out on my own.”

“That’s not fair,” Robert said, his voice strained, but Ethan could hear the guilt creeping into it, the cracks beginning to show. “I tried to be there for you. But what was I supposed to do, Ethan? What did you want from me?”

“I wanted you to care!” Ethan shouted, his voice cracking. “I wanted you to care enough to find out what happened to her, instead of pretending like she never existed. I wanted you to be my dad, not some stranger who shows up every few months and acts like everything’s fine.”

There was a long, agonizing pause, and when Robert finally spoke, his voice was quieter, more subdued. “You think I didn’t care? You think I didn’t ask myself every day what I could have done differently? I was just trying to protect you, Ethan. I didn’t want you to spend your life chasing ghosts.”

“But that’s exactly what I’m doing,” Ethan said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “I’ve been chasing a ghost my whole life because no one will tell me what really happened. I’m tired of the half-truths, the silence. I need to know, Dad. Even if it hurts.”

Robert didn’t respond right away. When he finally spoke, his words were slow, deliberate, as if he was choosing them with great care. “There are things you don’t understand, Ethan. Things that I… I can’t explain. Not now.”

Ethan’s heart sank. He had hoped, even after everything, that his father might finally open up, that this conversation would lead to some kind of breakthrough. But it was clear now that Robert was still determined to keep the door shut, no matter how much it hurt them both. “Then I guess I’ll have to find out on my own,” he said, his voice hardening with resolve. “I’m meeting Sarah tomorrow, and I’m going to find out what she knows. Whether you like it or not.”

“Ethan, don’t do this,” Robert said, the plea in his voice more desperate than Ethan had ever heard before. “You’re only going to hurt yourself. Please, just let it go.”

“I can’t,” Ethan said, the finality in his tone leaving no room for argument. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

The line went silent again, and for a moment Ethan wondered if Robert had hung up. But then he heard a faint sigh, almost like a whisper, and Robert spoke one last time, his voice barely audible. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Ethan. But be careful. Sometimes the truth isn’t what you think it is.”

And with that, the call ended. Ethan stared at the phone, his mind reeling, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Part of him wanted to throw it across the room, to scream, to vent all the frustration and anger that had been building up inside him for so long. But he couldn’t bring himself to move, couldn’t do anything except sit there, stunned by the realization that he was truly on his own.

His father’s words echoed in his head, taunting him with their vagueness. Sometimes the truth isn’t what you think it is. What did that mean? Was Robert hiding something, or was he just trying to scare Ethan away from his search? The uncertainty gnawed at him, fueling his determination to see this through, no matter what it cost.

For years, Ethan had been living in a haze, drifting through life without any real direction, but now, for the first time, he felt a clear sense of purpose. He was going to meet Sarah, and he was going to find out everything she knew. And if that led him to more questions, then he would keep searching until he had the answers he needed.

But even as he resolved to push forward, a small voice in the back of his mind whispered a warning, a reminder of what Robert had said. Ethan tried to ignore it, to focus on the hope that this journey might finally give him the closure he had been seeking. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was standing on the edge of something dangerous, something that might change everything he thought he knew about his mother, his family, and himself.

The confrontation with his father had left him more determined than ever, but it had also left him with a lingering sense of dread, a fear that whatever he found would be more complicated, more painful than he was prepared to handle. But he had come too far to turn back now. He had spent too many years living in the dark, and he wasn’t about to give up when he was finally so close to the light.

Ethan took a deep breath, trying to steady himself, and then set the phone down on his nightstand. Tomorrow, he would meet Sarah, and he would take the next step on this journey, whatever that meant. And as he lay back on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, he felt a strange mix of fear and anticipation, like he was about to step off a cliff, not knowing if he would fall or fly.