David asked, surprised.
“Just finishing up,” Vera said without turning around. “Tomorrow’s my day off. I wanted to leave everything in order.”
David poured himself a glass of water from the filter. He leaned against the counter.
“How is he?” he asked quietly.
“Good. He’s making progress.”
“With his studies?”
Vera turned around, drying her hands on a towel.
“With his life.”
David frowned.
“For a child with his condition, it’s the same thing.”
“No,” Vera countered calmly. “They’re completely different things. Michael can know the alphabet by heart, but if he doesn’t know how to feel joy, that’s not a life.”
“Are you saying I’m a bad father?” The question came out sharper than David had intended.
Vera didn’t back down.
“I’m saying you’re a scared father.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
Silence. David gripped the glass so tightly his knuckles turned white.
“You don’t know what I’ve been through.”
“I do,” Vera said softly. “The agency told me. About your wife. I’m very sorry.”
“Then you should understand why I do everything I can to protect my son.”
“I understand. But the question is, what are you protecting him from? The world, or life itself?”
David slammed the glass down on the counter. Water sloshed over the rim.
“I don’t pay you for psychological counseling.”
“You pay me to help your son. And that’s what I’m doing.”
She hung up the towel and picked up her bag.
“Goodnight, Mr. Solomon.”
He was left alone in the kitchen, staring at the wet spot on the countertop. A week went by. Then another. September was drawing to a close. The rains grew colder. David watched Vera and Michael. Sometimes through the cameras, sometimes in person when he came home early.
He saw how his son was changing. Michael started asking questions: “Why is the sky blue?” “Where do the birds go?” “How do trees grow?” Vera answered every question or found the answer with him. He started laughing. A real, childish laugh that David had previously only heard on old home videos with Kate.
He started hugging his father. Just because. For no reason. He’d walk up in the evening while David was on his laptop and wrap his arms around his neck. Each time, David would freeze, unsure what to do with this affection. On the last Saturday of September, a downpour began. A real, powerful storm, the kind that happens once a month.
David finished a meeting early and decided to head home. When he got to the apartment, it was empty. A pang of anxiety hit him. He checked the kid’s room, the living room, the kitchen. No one. He called Vera. No answer. He looked out the window. And he saw them.
In the manicured courtyard of the luxury condo building, among the perfectly trimmed lawns and designer flowerbeds, was a giant puddle. Or rather, a lake of mud. The rain had washed away the soil from some recent landscaping work. In the middle of this lake, knee-deep in muddy water, stood Vera. Her hair was plastered to her face, her clothes soaked through. She was laughing.
Next to her was Michael. In the same expensive jacket David had ordered from Italy. In his $500 boots. The boy was on his knees in the mud, molding something with his hands. David couldn’t breathe. Michael slapped his hand on the puddle. A spray of muddy water shot up, drenching Vera.
She laughed even harder and splashed him back. Michael made a sound. Not a word, but a sound. A cry of pure delight. And they started splashing each other like two lunatics. Like two children. David stood at the window, unable to look away. His son was smiling. A real, wide, unrestrained smile.
The same smile David hadn’t seen in three years. Something inside him broke. He spun around and bolted for the door. He flew down the stairs, not waiting for the elevator. He ran out into the rain. Vera saw him first. The smile vanished from her face. She stood up, shielding Michael with her body.
Instinctively. Protectively. Michael turned and froze. He saw his father. Soaked, out of breath, his face a mask of fury. The boy shrank, lowering his head. David took a step forward. Then another. He stopped a few feet away from them.
Michael looked up at him. His eyes were full of fear. And guilt. As if he had done something terrible. David looked at his son. At his muddy hands. At his soaked jacket. At his face, streaked with dirt. And he saw what the boy was holding.
A figure made of mud. Crooked, clumsy, but recognizable. A bird. A phoenix. The same one Kate used to draw for Michael every night before bed. Her favorite fairytale. Her last gift to her son—a sketchbook filled with drawings of the phoenix. David had forgotten about it. He’d hidden the sketchbook after her death because he couldn’t bear to see her hand in every line.
But Michael remembered. David dropped to his knees, right there in the puddle. His expensive suit pants sank into the mud. The cold, wet water seeped through the fabric. He didn’t care. He reached out to his son. Michael flinched.
“Show me,” David signed.
The boy hesitantly held out the figure. David took it in his hands. The mud stained his fingers. The bird was imperfect, childish, and beautiful. He looked at Michael.
“It’s beautiful,” he signed. “Very beautiful.”
Michael didn’t believe him. He shook his head.
He was waiting for his father to get angry, to punish him, to drag him home. But David scooped up a handful of mud and started to mold it. Awkwardly, clumsily—he’d never done this before. The hands that signed million-dollar contracts didn’t know how to make birds out of mud. Michael stared at him, his eyes wide.
David made something that vaguely resembled a bird. He showed it to his son.
“Like yours?”
Michael looked at both figures. Then, slowly, cautiously, he smiled. He signed:
“Mine’s better.”
David laughed. For the first time in three years, he truly laughed.
Vera stood nearby, tears streaming down her face, mixing with the rain. The three of them sat in the mud, under the downpour, making birds. David didn’t know how, but Michael taught him. The father was learning from his son what every child in the world knew, but what he himself had forgotten. How to play, how to be happy, how to live.
The happiness lasted until evening. They went up to the apartment. Muddy, wet, and laughing. David told Vera to go home, change, and rest. He took Michael to the bathroom, helped him wash up, and tucked him into bed. The boy fell asleep with a smile, clutching the muddy phoenix his father had let him keep.
David left the room and found ten missed calls on his phone from the head of the homeowners’ association. Three from the neighbor downstairs. And one message in the building’s resident chat group. He opened it. There was a photo. Him, Vera, and Michael in the puddle. And the comments: “What is this circus in our courtyard?” “They’ve ruined the lawn.” “Children should behave themselves.” “We paid this much for a condo to have people making mud pits?”
David closed the chat. The HOA president, a Mr. Henderson, a retired colonel with ironclad principles, called again.
“Solomon, what was that disgraceful display? This is a luxury complex, and you’re turning it into…”
“I was playing with my son,” David said evenly.
“In the mud? Do you realize we have to re-sod the lawn now?”
“Send me the bill. I’ll pay for it.”
“It’s not about the money, it’s about decorum. We have respectable people living here, and you…”
David hung up. He walked to the window. Down below, two maintenance workers were already cleaning up the evidence of their “crime.” Covering the mud with sand. Leveling the lawn. Erasing the traces of happiness. David stood and watched as the one place where his son had been truly alive disappeared.
And for the first time in three years, he understood with perfect clarity: he had been wrong. About everything. He hadn’t been building a life. He’d been building a museum. Beautiful, proper, and dead. His phone vibrated again. An unknown number. He answered.
“David, this is Eleanor Vance.”
His mother-in-law’s voice. Cold. Authoritative. David gripped the phone.
“Hello, Eleanor.”
“Nina from downstairs called me. She told me about the incident in the courtyard. I’m flying in from Boston tomorrow. We need to have a serious talk about Michael’s upbringing.”
“There’s no need for you to come.”
“Oh, there’s every need. I can see you’ve completely lost control of the situation. My daughter entrusted me to look after her son, and I will not allow you to…”
“Kate didn’t entrust you with anything,” David cut in sharply. “Michael is my son.”
“A son you’ve handed over to some small-town girl with no proper qualifications! I’ve made some inquiries, David. Your new nanny…”
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