“That’s a serious soccer jersey,” she said. “You any good?”
Ethan shrugged.
But some of the tension left his shoulders.
Then she asked him about the man.
Slowly, Ethan started talking.
He had first seen him down the block from school.
Not directly at the gate.
Closer to the corner where I normally picked him up after soccer practice.
The man had shown Ethan a photograph.
An old one.
In the picture, he stood beside Ryan.
Both younger.
Both smiling.
Arms over each other’s shoulders.
“He knew Dad,” Ethan said.
To a nine-year-old child desperate for memories of his dead father, the photograph had been enough.
The man told him stories.
Things about Ryan that I had apparently never told him.
“He knew stuff you didn’t know,” Ethan said.
That hurt.
Not because Ethan had done anything wrong.
Because someone had discovered the exact empty place inside my child.
And stepped into it.
Officer Patel asked,
“Did he ever follow you home?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did he try to get you into a car?”
“No.”
“Did he give you anything?”
Ethan hesitated.
Only for a second.
But everyone noticed.
“Ethan?” I said.
He grabbed my hand.
Then pointed toward the front door.
“I hid it.”
My stomach dropped.
“Hid what?”
He pointed at the umbrella stand beside the coat closet.
One officer immediately moved Ethan and me back into the kitchen.
Patel and her partner went toward the closet.
I heard the door open.
Boxes moving.
Then silence.
A few minutes later, Officer Patel returned.
Her expression had become unreadable.
“We found a black case hidden behind some winter boots.”
She held her hands about a foot apart.
“Does it belong to you?”
“No.”
“I’ve never seen it before.”
After that, everything changed.
They stopped touching anything.
More officers were called.
The word “evidence” entered the conversation.
Suddenly my home was no longer simply my home.
Officer Patel sat Ethan down again.
This time, she asked me not to answer for him.
And the rest came out slowly.
The man had approached Ethan four times over two weeks.
He knew real things about Ryan.
He knew Ryan had coached Ethan’s soccer team.
He knew Ryan used to call him Buddy.
He knew about a fishing trip Ryan had promised Ethan someday.
Those weren’t details from an obituary.
Whoever this man was, he had really known my husband.
