At the top of the box was a watch… a women’s watch, new and simple, the kind someone picks carefully when they want it to mean more than the price.
Under it was an envelope, with one word written across it in Tom’s handwriting: MOM.
I opened it, my heart pounding.
“Mom, thank you for everything you’ve done for me. You gave me everything… especially your time. So I’m giving it back to you. You need to forget about me and the past. Just live.”
Then came the part that took whatever air I had left.
“Please don’t try to find me. — Tom”
At the top of the box was a watch… a women’s watch.
I read it again. Then again. And somewhere in the third reading, the meaning of the watch formed in a way that made fresh tears burn. Tom wasn’t thanking me for my time. He thought he was returning it, like he was doing me a noble favor by stepping out of my life.
The second I understood that, I stopped feeling confused and started feeling furious at everything that had taught my son to measure his worth in sacrifice.
If he wanted me not to look for him, he had wildly misunderstood who had raised him.
I drove to Tom’s rented apartment. A man from his apartment office gave me the answer before I finished asking. “He moved out last week. Took his things, turned in the key. Said he was leaving town for work.”
“He moved out last week.”
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