Loneliness had its own sound. For Dr. Peter Wallace, a respected, retired obstetrician, it was the sound of the old grandfather clock in his spacious home. Its steady, unhurried rhythm marked the seconds, minutes, and years spent in silence, broken only by the rustle of medical journals and the quiet cough from his son, Michael, in the next room.
At sixty-five, Peter Wallace was a man of habit. His world was as ordered and structured as the books on his study shelves. But behind this facade of calm routine lived a secret.
A secret that, tomorrow, would turn exactly eighteen years old. Every time he looked at Michael, his heart clenched with a mixture of boundless love and a dull, chronic fear. His boy, his reason for living, his greatest joy, was also his greatest transgression.
Michael was a talented artist, a quiet and thoughtful young man with eyes the color of a stormy sky and a soul as fragile as a butterfly’s wing. He was the light of Peter’s life, his only family since his wife had passed away many years ago. But that light had been stolen.
The memories of that night still haunted his dreams. A raw November evening, a storm raging outside the maternity ward, the wind beating against the windows like a frantic bird. And in the delivery room, a nineteen-year-old girl, Anna Coleman, was dying.
A massive hemorrhage they couldn’t stop. He and his entire team had fought for her. But they lost.
She was gone, leaving behind two tiny, wailing bundles. Twin boys. Peter remembered standing over the two incubators.
One boy was strong, rosy-cheeked, loudly announcing his right to life. The second was tiny, bluish, his breathing barely audible. The diagnosis was grim: a complex congenital heart defect.
Children like that rarely lived to see their first birthday. He remembered walking into the hallway to face Anna’s grief-stricken parents. The father—a stern man with a military bearing—and the mother—a frail woman on the verge of collapse.
He looked at their faces, twisted in agony, and he just couldn’t. He couldn’t deliver another blow.
“You have a grandson,” he had said, the words catching in his throat.
“A healthy boy. The other… the other one, I’m afraid, didn’t make it. He was born too weak.”
The lie was born spontaneously—out of compassion, out of a desire to shield these devastated people from more pain. He personally handled the death certificate for the second child, using all his connections and authority.
The healthy boy, Daniel, was given to his grandparents. And the second, nameless and nearly hopeless, he took for himself. He named him Michael, after his own father.
And so began his private, desperate war for the boy’s life. All these years, he had lived in constant fear. Fear that Michael’s heart would give out.
Fear that his deception would one day be discovered. He became more than a father to the boy; he was a guardian angel. He found the best cardiac surgeons, sourced rare medications, and spent sleepless nights by his bedside after every operation.
He had pulled him through, begged and borrowed him from fate. And now, looking at his grown, nearly healthy son, he knew he didn’t regret a thing. But the secret lived on, a constant shadow.
Tomorrow, Michael would turn eighteen. A legal adult. The start of a new, independent life.
Peter had a gift for him: an old silver locket that had belonged to his own mother. He wanted to pass it down to his son as a symbol of their family, their lineage.
The irony of the thought was bitter as wormwood.
“Dad, what are you staring at?” Michael’s voice pulled him from his thoughts.
His son stood in the doorway of the study, holding a sketchbook.
“I finished the sketch for my new painting. Want to see?”
“Of course, son.” Peter forced a smile, hiding his anxiety deep inside. “Of course, I do.”
He walked over to his son, put an arm around his thin shoulders, and looked into his clear, trusting eyes. And the fear, like an icy snake, slithered through him once more.
What would happen if Michael ever found out the truth? Could he forgive the father whose life was built on a great love and an equally great lie? The question hung unanswered, making the approaching day all the more terrifying. Tomorrow was an unavoidable milestone, beyond which lay either quiet joy or the complete collapse of everything he held dear.
The morning of Michael’s eighteenth birthday was filled with sunlight, which streamed through the tall windows and painted a golden square on the old hardwood floor.
Peter had woken long before dawn, as he often did these past few years. Insomnia had become his faithful companion, a ghost from the past that sat on the edge of his bed and held silent conversations with him. But today, the usual anxiety was mixed with something else—a bright, celebratory, almost forgotten feeling.
His boy was a man.
He quietly went to the kitchen and started making breakfast. Pancakes, which Michael had loved since he was a child, freshly squeezed orange juice, and the rich aroma of coffee.
Every gesture was perfected over years, filled with love and care. He remembered learning to cook when Michael was small and weak after another surgery. The doctors had prescribed a strict diet, and he, Peter Wallace, a respected physician and department head, had spent his nights studying cookbooks, trying to create something delicious from the approved ingredients to cheer up his sick child.
Those small victories in the kitchen were as important to him as his successes in the operating room. When Michael walked into the kitchen, sleepy, his hair tousled, wearing his favorite T-shirt with a Van Gogh print, Peter felt a lump of tenderness form in his throat.
“Happy birthday, son,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady.
“Thanks, Dad!”
Michael hugged him, and for a moment, Peter froze, inhaling the familiar scent of his child, who was now half a head taller than him.
“Oh, pancakes! You’re the best!”
They sat at the table, and the morning silence was cozy and peaceful. Michael devoured his pancakes with gusto, while Peter simply watched him, trying to commit every feature, every movement to memory.
“Dad,” Michael said suddenly, taking a sip of juice, “tell me about Mom. What was she like?”
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