Malik placed the childhood drawing in front of his parents.
Two figures held hands beneath an enormous yellow sun.
“I remember making this.”
His mother smiled uncertainly.
“You drew all the time.”
“I remember who I made it for.”
His stepfather shifted in his chair.
Malik opened the small tin he had found in the attic. Beneath the drawing were ticket stubs, a toy car, and a folded yellow note.
Part of the message read: Do not tell him Dad came.
He pushed it across the table.
“Who wrote that?”
His mother covered her mouth.
His father had missed Malik’s seventh birthday. For years, that absence had been offered as proof that he couldn’t be relied upon.
But the drawing showed them together.
Malik remembered more now: standing in the front garden, his father crouching to admire the picture, his mother calling him inside.
“He arrived late,” she said.
“But he arrived.”
“We argued.”
“So you told me he never came?”
She looked toward her husband. He shook his head.
“Don’t ask me to explain it.”
Malik took the drawing upstairs.
The following weekend, he brought it when he visited his father.
The older man stared at it for a long time.
“I wondered what happened to that.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried once. You got upset. After that, I thought I should leave it alone.”
“You all keep deciding what I can handle.”
His father nodded.
“You’re right.”
They spent the afternoon going through dates and memories. Neither remembered everything. Neither pretended to.
Before Malik left, his father asked whether he could keep the drawing.
Malik considered it.
“Let me make you a copy.”
He wanted the original where he could find it.
End of Narrative:
