Chapter 13: A Father Without Memory
1208 Words
“She remembers everything. He remembers nothing. But the child between them remembers both.
“She has my eyes…”
The Reyes Foundation Center was quiet, wrapped in a late afternoon hush broken only by the soft chatter of children and the creaking rhythm of rocking chairs. Sunlight streamed through wide windows, bathing the playroom in golden warmth, as if the universe had pressed pause for a moment of peace.
Belle crouched low beside a small boy carefully stacking wooden blocks. Her voice was soft, encouraging. Her eyes, though, kept flicking toward the corner of the room where her daughter sat alone at a tiny table, immersed in colors and dreams.
Hope’s crayon strokes were slow and steady, her curls bouncing with each movement. She always drew in silence, brow furrowed in concentration—except today. Today she was humming something, and Belle recognized it instantly: the tune she used to sing when Hope was teething and restless, the same lullaby Xander had once hummed against Belle’s shoulder, their newborn cradled between them.
Belle swallowed a lump in her throat.
She had learned to live with ache—the ache of memory, of absence, of things unsaid. But some days... some days, it ambushed her.
The door creaked open.
Belle didn’t look up. She was too used to the comings and goings of volunteers and social workers. But Hope’s small voice cracked through her like thunder:
“Papa?”
Belle froze.
Every cell in her body rebelled against the moment. Not now. Not yet.
She turned, slow as breath, dread blooming like frost in her chest.
There he was.
Xander stood at the threshold, still in his button-down shirt and loosened tie, eyes wide. His gaze wasn’t on Belle. It was on the little girl who had called out to him with such innocent certainty.
And for one suspended second, something flickered across his face.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
Belle reached Hope in two strides and crouched beside her. Her voice was calm, but her fingers trembled on Hope’s tiny shoulder.
“Sweetheart,” she murmured. “Remember what we talked about, baby? You can’t say that word to strangers.”
“But he’s not a stranger,” Hope said, blinking. “He’s mine.”
Belle’s heart cracked down the middle.
“She just likes saying that,” Belle added quickly, her voice aimed at Xander now, light and effortless—at least on the surface. “Some of the other kids say it too. It’s just a word.”
Xander didn’t respond.
He took a hesitant step forward.
“She… she made this,” he said, lifting the drawing Hope had slid toward him. “Is this me?”
Hope beamed. “You’re the tall one. See? I gave you shoes that can fly.”
He looked down at the picture. There were two figures—one large, drawn with charcoal-gray hair and a smiling face, the other small with red shoes and a crown of messy curls. Above them, written in jagged toddler script, were the words:
Me and Papa.
His thumb brushed the words like they meant something sacred.
Belle’s breath caught.
Hope tilted her head. “Do you like it?”
Xander crouched slowly, his movements uncertain, like someone walking through a dream. “I… I do. Very much.”
“Want to share my snack?” she asked, pulling a tiny pack of chips from her pink backpack.
And just like that, he smiled.
Belle stood there frozen, her fingers clasped tightly behind her back.
Xander—her husband who didn’t remember her, who didn’t remember them—sat cross-legged on the floor, shoulder-to-shoulder with their daughter. Hope giggled as she fed him a chip. He laughed when she made up a story about the flying shoes and how they would take her to the moon where her "real house with sparkles" was waiting.
And then, without thinking, he began to hum.
Belle knew the song immediately.
The lullaby.
The one she sang on the nights when Hope was sick, or scared, or simply couldn’t sleep unless wrapped in the sound of her mother’s voice. It was the lullaby Belle had once whispered into Xander’s chest when she’d been afraid of losing everything, and the one he had only ever hummed once—on the night he finally rocked their baby to sleep alone.
Now, he hummed it again. Without memory. Without prompting.
Her knees nearly gave out.
She turned away, hand clutched to her chest as silent sobs wracked her body. She bit her lip to keep from making a sound.
Behind her, the song went on.
FLASHBACK
Belle watched from the doorway, barely holding it together.
Xander, still in his suit pants and white undershirt, held their days-old baby girl in his arms. Hope was fussing, wriggling and red-faced. Xander was visibly panicking.
“She hates me,” he said.
“She’s hungry,” Belle replied, walking over and placing a bottle in his hand. “You’ll be okay.”
He tried. The first time, he dropped the cap. The second, he held the bottle at the wrong angle. But the third time… Hope latched.
And then she smiled.
Xander froze.
And then, utterly undone, he began to cry.
Belle leaned her forehead against his shoulder, her arms around them both.
“She loves you,” she whispered. “She always will.”
Back in the present, Belle turned slowly and saw him again through tear-blurred eyes.
Xander, completely unaware of who he was to this child, was still beside her, now helping her pick up crayons. Hope giggled, announcing that “Papa was very bad at coloring inside the lines.”
And he laughed.
He laughed like it was real.
Because it was.
Somewhere deep inside him, he still knew.
A shadow moved behind them.
Victor Delgado stood silently at the threshold.
The look on his face was cold, calculated. His eyes burned straight into Belle’s.
“Get her away from him,” he said under his breath, stepping beside her.
“Don’t,” Belle replied. Her voice was soft, but sharp.
“This wasn’t the plan. He’s remembering the wrong way. If he regains everything at once—”
“She’s not a threat. She’s his daughter.”
Victor’s nostrils flared. “And you are the woman who promised me control. Don’t forget why we made this arrangement, Belle. You’re the one who let him go.”
Tears blurred her vision, but she didn’t look away. “I didn’t let him go. He was taken from me.”
That night, in his private office, Xander sat in the dark.
The city below glittered.
On his desk, Hope’s drawing lay beside a photograph he’d found wedged between papers in Belle’s file folder. It showed Belle sitting on a bench in the park, her hair pulled up, a baby in her arms. She wasn’t looking at the camera—she was looking at the baby, smiling like the whole world began and ended there.
Xander stared at the photo for hours.
His hands trembled.
“She has my eyes…” he whispered.
And for the first time in months,
he didn’t feel empty.
He felt… haunted.
END OF CHAPTER THIRTEEN
- Writer
