He looks at the old photo. This one is different. It is not neat like the framed picture hanging on the wall. This one has been worn by weary eyes searching the faces. Worn from being stuffed in a pocket when safe and carefully stowed away when he was on mission. Worn from being touched as a talisman.
The faces are about to speak to him or perhaps the words have already past their lips and if he listens maybe he can hear the faint echo in his mind. It is the woman who loved him and the boy. The boy is sitting there in the garden, his hand raised as if waving hello. He can't recall the occasion or the season but if he reconstructs the time he received it and looks for clues in the picture…but it is too painful.
He puts the picture down and knows that this is the past. If he could go back and change things would it only have ended in another tragic way? Was there another disaster that would have destroyed them?
His present is good. Have the past years filled with pain and longing finally paid the debt? He doubted he would ever pay in full. What is the price of your child and the destruction of a marriage?
But he has found a woman who loves him, who actually wants him in her life. It almost makes him laugh, it seems so absurd. And he is willing to share his life with her. But this, he thumbs the photo gently, this, (although he can share everything as he holds her in his arms from the minutia of his daily routine to the emotional turmoil of the pains and joys of life) this he cannot talk about.