By the time I got there, I’d already rehearsed my apology in the car — for his temper, for whatever he’d said, for however this reflected on us as parents. I walked into the office and went straight to him.
He was sitting in a chair with a split, swollen lip.
“Are you okay?” I crouched in front of him, checking his face.
He didn’t answer. He lifted one hand and pointed past my shoulder, toward the wall.
I turned around.
And I stopped breathing.
A boy sat near the filing cabinets, arms crossed, refusing to look at anyone. He had Ethan’s gray eyes. Ethan’s narrow chin. A birthmark sitting in the exact same spot beside one eyebrow, like it had been traced from a template. His hair ran darker, almost black instead of Ethan’s sandy brown, but everything else about him looked like someone had photocopied my son and set the copy down across the room.
