Chapter 6 :The Lost Pieces
Molly couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
The man in front of her was the man from her dream. But he was also different. More real. Older. More broken.
"Hello, Molly," Sean said. His voice was quiet and careful, like he was afraid she would break.
Molly's face went from white to red to white again. "Get out," she said. "Get out of my home."
"Mom—" Alex started, but Molly held up her hand.
"Upstairs. Now. All three of you. Go to your rooms."
The children wanted to argue, but they could see that their mother was about to break. They left quietly.
When they were gone, Molly stepped back. "You have five minutes. Talk."
"I know what I did," Sean said. "I know that I forgot you. I know that I left you alone. The children told me about the pregnancy. About how your family threw you out. About how you raised three babies by yourself."
"You don't know anything," Molly said bitterly. "You don't know what it was like. You don't know what I gave up."
She turned away from him. "I don't even remember how it happened, okay? You know what I have? I have a dream. A fuzzy memory of a man in the dark who felt real for a moment. And nine months later, I had three babies with your face."
Molly's voice broke. "Do you know what people said about me? Do you know what my family did to me? I was seventeen years old, Sean. Seventeen. I had just been brought to that house. I didn't know anything. And then I was pregnant, and everyone hated me."
Sean reached for her, but she pulled away.
"I don't want you here," she said. "I don't want your money. I don't want your apologies. I want you to leave and never come back."
"Molly—"
"My name is not Molly to you. You don't get to use my name like we know each other. You don't get to act like you care. You got to move on. You got to pretend it never happened. But I didn't. Every single day for six years, I looked at my children and I saw you. Your face. Your eyes. Your DNA."
She was crying now, but her voice was still strong. "You took away my childhood. You took away my family. You took away my whole life. And then you just forgot. You just erased me like I never existed."
"I didn't erase you," Sean said. "I erased myself. I pretended I didn't remember because I was scared of what I had done to you. I was scared of the person I had been that night."
"What person?" Molly asked. "What are you talking about?"
Sean sat down on her small couch. He looked around her apartment with its secondhand furniture and its water stains on the ceiling. He looked at the photos on the walls—pictures of three small children growing up without their father.
"I was a drunk that night," Sean said finally. "I had never been drunk before or since. My father had just died two months earlier. I was alone and angry and lost. And I went to that party and I drank too much to cover up the pain."
He looked at Molly.
"I don't remember everything. I remember meeting you. I remember you being kind to me. I remember you made me feel like a human being instead of a machine. And then... there are holes in my memory."
"Holes?" Molly said. "Sean, what are you saying?"
"I'm saying that I don't remember if I... if what happened was consensual. I don't remember if you wanted it or if I hurt you. And that's why I couldn't remember you. Because if I didn't remember, then maybe it never happened. Maybe I never hurt you."
The apartment was very quiet.
"You didn't hurt me," Molly said finally. "Not during... not that night. That part was actually... it was the only good thing that happened to me in a long time."
Sean looked at her with tears in his eyes.
"But you hurt me after," Molly continued. "You hurt me by disappearing. You hurt me by leaving me alone. You hurt me by being so easy to forget."
"I know," Sean said. "I can't change that. I can't go back and fix it. All I can do is say that I'm sorry. And that I'm here now."
"You think being sorry is enough?" Molly asked. "You think you can just show up at my door and ruin my life all over again?"
"No," Sean said. "But I'm asking you to let me try to be a father. Not for you. For them."
From upstairs, they could hear the sound of three children crying silently in their rooms. They could hear the sound of a family that was breaking apart at the seams.
Molly closed her eyes. "You need to leave. We'll talk about this tomorrow. Right now, I need to be with my children."
"Our children," Sean said quietly.
"No," Molly said. "My children. They've been my children for six years. You don't get to claim them tonight just because you finally remember their mother."
Sean stood up. At the door, he turned back. "I meant what I said. I want to know them. I want to know you. And I think you want to know me too, even if you're too angry to admit it."
After he left, Molly sat in the dark and didn't turn on any lights.
And upstairs, in their small bedroom that they all shared, three children held each other and wondered if they had just ruined everything.