"No."
Aaron nodded.
"Good."
She frowned.
"Good?"
"I missed less."
Hannah's smile disappeared.
Aaron looked away.
That was the first crack.
Over the next month, cracks appeared everywhere.
Aaron wanted every photograph.
Every video.
Every hospital record.
Every ultrasound.
Hannah gave them.
He watched Noah's birth video alone.
Not the actual delivery.
A clip Denise recorded minutes afterward.
Hannah looked pale and exhausted.
A nurse placed Noah against her chest.
Hannah cried and whispered:
"Your daddy would've loved you."
Aaron stopped the video.
He could not continue.
He sat in his car outside the house and screamed.
Not words.
Just sound.
Grief for things that had happened while he was alive.
He had survived.
But survival had not preserved his life.
Time still moved.
His son was born.
His wife grieved.
His mother aged.
People held a funeral.
Captivity had stolen more than freedom.
It stole participation.
Aaron began trauma counseling.
He hated it.
The therapist, Dr. Elaine Porter, refused to treat his feelings like problems to solve quickly.
"You seem angry that Noah exists."
Aaron stared.
"I'm not."
"Then what are you angry about?"
"I missed it."
"His birth?"
"Everything."
He leaned forward.
"I was alive."
Elaine nodded.
"Yes."
"They were making decisions about my life while I was alive."
"Because they believed you were dead."
"I know."
"Knowing doesn't remove the feeling."
"No."
"What does it feel like?"
Aaron thought.
"Like somebody took my seat at my own table."
"But nobody replaced you."
"Time did."
That answer silenced even him.
Elaine nodded slowly.
"That's closer."
Aaron looked away.
She asked, "Do you love your son?"
He immediately said, "I don't know him."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only honest one."
Elaine accepted it.
"Good."
Aaron frowned.
"Good?"
"Love isn't required to appear instantly because biology says it should."
He stared.
She continued.
"You have permission to meet him."
Not claim him.
Not perform fatherhood.
Meet him.
That changed something.
Aaron stopped trying to recover eleven months in eleven days.
Instead, he learned Noah in real time.
They sat on the floor.
Noah crawled toward his boots.
Aaron moved them.
Noah crawled back.
A game.
Aaron showed him a soft ball.
Noah ignored it and played with the box.
Aaron said, "You cost thousands in fertility treatment and your favorite toy is cardboard."
Hannah laughed from the kitchen.
The sound stopped him.
He had missed that laugh.