The Magic of A Rendezvous

Chris's POV It was a cold night in the city. I brought my basketball and dribbled it at the court at the back of my house. I had gotten used to living in Shanghai since five years ago I and my family moved from Auckland. Life was easy at the first time we moved here but my son, Caelan, he had been growing up and surrounded by many of his friends. I could not blame kids these days having many acquaintances, their talking was out of my control until one day Caelan asked me about his mother whereabouts and I could not give him the answer that he expected. I ran groggily as I dribbled the ball. Even though I made many shots to the ring but the thoughts of Amber kept haunting my mind. I wanted to get rid of her from my head, my life then, moved on but I did not know why I could not do that. She was the one for me, she was the love of my life and she was the only one that made me feel this way right now, this miserable and devastated. Although, David had me stay away from her but secretly, without everybody knowing, I kept searching for her everywhere but unfortunately, I got no results. I went back to the bench to take a rest for a little bit. I looked at her picture that I picked up from my wallet. Yes, I was still keeping her picture just to reminisce the moments that we had ever made years ago. She was very pretty back then, even though her style was different from any other girls, she was this tomboy chick from New York coming to Shanghai with zero ability of Chinese skill, but the last moments we shared together, she always looked gloomy, she never told me what was going on. How I missed her so bad. I wondered how she looked like now, we had been separated for ten years since we were 18. The last time I remembered about what we talked about was when she was telling me that she was pregnant and I was the father of her child. She cried and I was confused, I felt guilty surrounding my whole heart. She was my best friend, she was my girlfriend. I thought we loved each other and we could get through this together but she left following her father, David to only God knows where. We never met again, I stopped looking for her since a year ago, I kind of surrendered. If she did not know want to be found, so just be it. I didn't want to hurt my child, our child if then, David found out about it. I began to dribble the basketball again as I was still playing basketball at the back of our house, releasing my frustration. My company did not do well these days and I was busy searching for other investors to build up our reputation again. I became an architect just like what we always talked about when we were in high school. I even built my house now in Shanghai based on what we discussed, what we designed together, what she loved about. When I was about to shoot my ball to the ring, my mom came to me, bringing me snack and coffee. "Hey, mom. No need to do this." "You're still my son." She sat on the bench as she placed the tray consisting of the snack and coffee for me. She was there looking at me playing basketball by my own self. I could notice her being uneasy tonight, she looked very uncomfortable. I decided to walk approaching her and I sat right next to her. "Mom, c'mon, I'm 28 now. I'm not 18 anymore. Just pamper Caelan, not me." I circled my hand around her shoulders. I knew Tracy, my mom, she hid something but she wanted to talk to me about it tonight. "Caelan's sleeping with Wendy." She informed me, then, she heaved a sigh, signaling there was something happened before. "What's wrong now?" I asked her right away before she changed the topic. I was curious about it but my hunch told me that it was about Caelan. Tracy looked up at my face, it looked like words were going to escape from her mouth, but she blocked them. "No, nothing." "Oh, c'mon, mom. What happened?" I insisted. "Well, I just feel like my family isn't perfect. We're not a perfect family for Caelan." She confessed it to me. She was never like this before, it was the first time in a long time. I tried to calm her. "Caelan has you as his grandma, he has Wendy as his aunt and he has me. We're a perfect family." I pretended not to care what she actually meant. "He doesn't have a mother." She said it finally. "You don't have a wife." I looked at her in her eyes, I caressed her shoulders warmly. I understood her, she wanted a woman in this house to be my company, for being Caelan’s mother, to complete this family. I didn't know what to say this time. "Today, he asked me about his mother. I couldn't say anything about her." She looked straight to my eyes. "It's because he saw his friends picked up by their mothers and he was picked up by Wendy, so, he asked me why." "Why don't you try to find one for him? Hm? I met Shirley, that Brand Ambassador at your company, she's fine, she's kind too. I met your secretary, Crystal, right? She's polite to me." My mom kept talking about women around me but none of them caught my attention. “She’s good for you too, she knows about you a lot.” “Crystal knows me because she’s my personal secretary, not more than that. Furthermore, she’ll get married soon, she’s engaged, Mom.” I explained to her. "Are you still waiting for her? Are you still loving her? Why? You both won't even meet! You don't even know where she is and she doesn't even know where you are. You two are in different dimension now." She scolded me all night long until she was satisfied. I just listened to her whining about our life. At first, it was fine without Amber but as the time went by and Caelan was ten years old now, his curiosity was growing and I couldn't hide her from him anymore.