"Do you recognize me now?" Charlie spoke softly to the man who was supposed to be his father.Matt Gordon gave a sharp reply, brushing it off as some kind of joke, and simply stated the total for the haircut: five dollars and twenty-three cents.Charlie's whole body ached, and he felt like throwing up. A lump swelled in his throat as if a popcorn kernel was about to pop out of his eyes as tears welled up. No. I shouldn't tell him—he wouldn't understand. Lost in that thought, Charlie couldn't stop the tears anymore. Right there in front of Matt, he broke down—loud, uncontrollable sobs. The kind that reminded him of his mother's hysteria, of the way she used to cry when she looked at him. Since the operation, he'd never felt such a raw, impulsive surge of emotion.He tried desperately to stop the tears, but they kept flooding out. His nose ran embarrassingly, his face now drenched and crumpled like a soggy piece of paper.

" ...It's me, Father." That was all Charlie could manage. He had intended to abandon this plan, certain Matt wouldn't accept him. But maybe the tears had disarmed his reasoning, or maybe something deeper had taken over. He said it.He wasn't even sad—at least not in the usual way. The feeling had just erupted.He wanted to flee, to disappear from that barbershop as fast as possible. But his legs wouldn't move, as if paralyzed. His body screamed to get out, but his legs remained frozen, leaving him a weeping man in a strange, vulnerable pose. Matt Gordon said nothing. The barbershop was eerily silent. It felt like even the air, the mirrors, the light—all of it had frozen in time just to absorb the sound of Charlie's sobbing.The razor had stopped. The sunlight from the window no longer glinted off the scissors. Everything seemed to reflect only Charlie's cries.He felt the echo of his own voice dying down, his chest trembling with aftershocks.Matt looked at him with a mix of confusion and concern.Charlie swallowed hard and forced out one more sentence.

"I'm your son—Charlie Gordon." But the way he said it… it sounded like a confession. Like a murderer finally admitting his crime. Heavy. Guilt-ridden. Matt stared at him.A rush of emotions passed across Matt's face, too quickly to name. "Charlie?"

"It's me. It really is." A brief silence fell. Matt scratched the back of his head, giving an awkward little laugh. "What the hell... How did this happen? How did you… end up with a face like that, looking so smart?" He spoke as though welcoming a boy who had just run in from the yard, but his face was a storm of shock, joy, and sadness. Charlie didn't have many memories of Matt speaking directly to him—mostly he'd seen his father talk to Rose—but the sound of Matt's voice, now addressed to him, felt strange. But what did that matter now?

Thirty-three-year-old Charlie Gordon stepped forward and threw himself into his father's arms.