She'd seen in him, first and foremost, his eyes. It was easy. They looked alike, with their bright eyes full of wonder and hidden bravery and kindness and love, love, maybe. She'd wanted to touch his skin, the redness of his cheeks when she'd get close, too close, maybe, the warmth of his hands against her waist stopping her from floating, floating away. But she was already floating, much further than he could reach her with his hands, not so far that he couldn't have reached her with his lips.
So she'd wanted him to get close, just as close as he'd been, closer, closer to fill the hole in her heart. She'd seen the shape of his hands and the cut of his jaw and the blackness of his hair, the way it fell in his eyes when he was running, when he was moving too fast. And yes, yes, of course, his shoulders weren't as squared, he was thinner, not quite as strong (she could feel it in his grip on her waist to stop her from floating away), and he was missing the adventurous look in his eyes, the confidence, the smirk and the way the corners of his lips folded when he smiled and yes she missed those, of course she missed those.
But it was close enough. It was much closer than anything else she'd gotten in the last seventy goddamn years, much closer than the way she cried and screamed into her pillow at night and than her hand between her thighs and her memories of him could ever offer. She had longed and cried and suffered and he was back, not him, she tried to tell herself, not him, but it was goddamn close and it was the best she'd gotten and it was the best she'd ever get.
Like if he'd thought of her, when he made love to someone else, like he'd thought of her with his hand between his thighs and he'd thought of her when his wife had given birth and now he was giving her him, another him, the one she could have. Like he was offering her the thing she never could have before, the thing he could never give, he was giving it to her now, because now he could. Through someone else. Through this other boy, his own flesh, he was sending him, like an apology she'd long awaited and never gotten, and had stopped hoping she would get (she had never stopped hoping).
Now before her there was this boy, with his bright eyes and his hair and his hands, and she didn't see in him, she tried to not see in him the wide hole where his shoulders should have extended, the lack of strength and confidence and adventure and the way the corner of his lips didn't fold when he smiled. She tried to see him and only him, with her heart soaring out of her chest because she'd never encased it in shoes of lead, because she knew, she knew he had the rope that kept her from losing it and this was the proof, this boy, this small thin not enough boy
and really, really, she knew he'd let go long ago.