Page 72 of Moros

“I learned to from the internet.” Morgana nodded.

“It’s delicious,” I said. “Thank you.”

We enjoyed the calm before the storm for a little while, before we got down to talking about the massive purple elephant in the room.

“Your father wasn’t supposed to stay in Canada.” Morgana began. “Teddy and I knew the only way to get him a leg up in life, was to figure out how to move him abroad. So, we saved every penny we could and once he graduated high school, we got him his papers to study abroad.”

“Everything was going well at first.” Theodore picked up the story as Morgana was sobbing softly. “He would call, as agreed, every Saturday morning because long distance phone calls were expensive.”

“This was before um—what do you young folks call it?” Morgana tapped the corners of her eyes with a piece of napkin. “WhatsApp?”

Ryanne and I nodded.

“Gana and I would make sure we were home to get his call.” Theodore patted his wife’s hand affectionately. “But after a couple of years, the calls became less frequent.”

“Do you know why that was?” I asked.

“No.” Theodore replied, his lips trembling. “At first, we thought it was because he was young—meeting people, meeting girls. But then we’d be lucky if we got one call every three weeks. We would complain but he made it feel as we were the problem.”

“How so?” Ryanne stepped in.

“He never would explain what he was doing.” Morgana answered. “Just that he was busy with school and a part-time job and that he thought we would understand. After a while we stopped pushing. We never wanted to pressure him. He was our son.”

“Of course.” I nodded as Morgana filled my glass again. “He was your son and you just wanted a bit of his time. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“His calls became even less as the years rolled on—” Morgana paused again, her heart seemingly breaking again. “We’d be lucky if we got a call at Christmas.”

“Then just after his intern with some bigshot started, he called and told us that he was married.” Theodore scoffed. “We didn’t know this woman. He never spoke to us about her, never offered for us to meet. He didn’t even invite us to his wedding. It hurt—and before we had a chance to digest that information?—”

“He was telling us she was pregnant—five months.” Morgana nodded.

“Wait—he married someone without his parents being there?” Ryanne was incredulous. “Who does something like that? Was it so he could get his citizenship?”

“We don’t know,” Morgana said, slurping through her straw. “He never told us anything. We’ve never even seen a picture of her. We found out about their deaths from a friend your father made while he was in Canada—he called us to inform us that Anne had just given birth and that Morrisey was driving home when the accident happened.”

“He said all three of them were in the vehicle?” It was my turn to arch a brow at what I was hearing.

Both Morgana and Theodore nodded.

“He said no one made it.” Morgana explained. “He sent us pictures of the accident. And because we didn’t have our papers, we missed the burials.”

Why would this friend lie?

“Um—I know this might be hard, but could we see those pictures?” I leaned in. “If you still have them.”

“Sure.” She tapped my cheek with a warm palm before leaving.

“It’s scary how much you resemble your father,” Theodore said, looking intently at Ryanne. “He had the same big, curious eyes. They were eyes that questioned everything without being able to hide that fact.”

“I’m not sure if this is a good thing after what I just heard.” She sighed. “I’m sorry he just took off—I don’t know what to say.”

“It’s not your fault, child.” He offered her a soft smile as Morgana shuffled into the room with an old, Royal Dansk cookie tin.

She placed it on the center table after I moved the tray out of the way, then lifted the lid to gently dig through the contents. Finding one of those old air mail white envelops with the red and blue lines along the edges, she lifted it out with a shaking hand and extended it to Ryanne.

I sat back and watched as she read the letter inside, then began slowly leafing through the pictures, handing them one by one to me as she looked at them.

“There aren’t any pictures of a baby.” I mused. “There isn’t even a child seat.”

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