Chapter 56 - His Mother Gave Him The Old Phone
A month later, Leo's mother called him into her office.
She had something waiting on the desk.
It was a small black box.
Leo recognized it immediately.
“The phone?”
She nodded.
It was the phone Leo had used at the gala years ago.
The device had been preserved as evidence before eventually being returned.
He picked it up carefully.
“I thought you got rid of this.”
“I couldn't.”
“Why?”
She smiled.
“Because it belongs to you.”
Leo stared at it.
“That night changed everything.”
“Yes.”
“Do you regret letting me do it?”
His mother sat across from him.
“I regret that you ever had to.”
Leo looked down.
“But would you change what happened?”
She was quiet.
“No.”
He looked up.
“Why?”
“Because you told the truth.”
She touched the phone.
“But I would change one thing.”
“What?”
“I would never make a child carry an adult's burden if I could prevent it.”
Leo nodded.
“I understand.”
She smiled.
“You were nine.”
“I know.”
“You shouldn't have had to understand any of it.”
Leo turned the phone over in his hand.
“I didn't understand everything.”
“You didn't need to.”
He looked at her.
“I just knew Dad was lying.”
His mother smiled sadly.
“That was enough.”
Leo placed the phone back inside the box.
“Can I keep it?”
“Yes.”
He closed the lid.
Then he stopped.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“I don't want this to be the thing I remember when I think about my childhood.”
His mother felt something inside her break softly.
Not from pain.
From relief.
“What do you want to remember?”
Leo smiled.
“Pancakes.”
She laughed.
“Of course.”
“And baseball.”
“Of course.”
“And Grandpa.”
Her smile became gentler.
“And you.”
She reached across the desk.
Leo took her hand.
“The phone can stay in the box,” he said.
“I think that's where it belongs.”
His mother nodded.
For years, that phone had represented the night their family broke.
Now Leo understood something different.
The phone had never been his childhood.
It had only been one night in it.
May you like
And he refused to let one night own everything else.
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