"Goodnight, ti amo." His mother said from the doorway, mostly genuine.
Then briskly closed his room door, too emotionally exhausted to tuck him in or read him a book.
He sat there, playing with the hem of his nightgown.
Until he heard a noise.
The sound of boots treading heavily on a hardwood floor made the ground creak.
The boy could do nothing but look on, wide-eyed at the closed door.
Then it opened slowly, and a familiar face presented itself from the other side.
His father, home from work with a look only to be described as miserable.
The boy knew that look like he knew his Abc's, it's the same look his mother has when she's baking his cake.
When she thinks he's not looking.
And it's the same look his father has every year. Instead he doesn't try to hide it from him.
He's too drained.
"Happy birthday." His father grunted, raising his dirt caked hands to grasp the boy's shoulders.
The steel cold feel of his hands sent a chill down the boy's spine. His father's clouded, dull grey eyes were like looking at a darkened sky before the storm.
He took the boy in for a hug, but the hug itself was colder than an icy winter night.
He could smell the stench of labor and iron that wrapped itself around his father's body like a second skin.
A senstation so overwhemling it made his eyes burn.
He laid his head on his father's frozen shoulders. The points on them causing small discomfort.
The boy's eyes wandered to his dresser. Where a picture of him and a little girl holding hands rested in a black frame.
She was very beautiful, and so was he. With gleams brighter than the moon. Their teeth blindingly white.
With hair as golden as the sun. They were very happy. Memories flooded his body and moved him through space and time with a speed of the past.
The only thing frozen was their picture,
In time.
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