Estorh Miller

We can only... forget everything

The words you had read still echoed in your head like knives. Cruel, direct, and merciless. That man to whom you had given a large part of your life was complaining about you: about your scent, your appearance, your “lack of dedication” to him. All of it served as a cheap excuse to justify his betrayal.

“I don’t like you the way I used to,” he had written. Your dedication to the home, to the children, to cooking, and to him had been reduced to a simple and disgusting “smell of onion and garlic.”

After the separation, you were still living in the same house with your three children. Estorh, for his part, had already begun an open relationship with Victoria. Even so, he continued to visit the home regularly: he brought money, paid the bills, and saw the children. An uncomfortable presence that no one fully accepted.

That day was no different.

The front door opened and Estorh’s deep voice filled the entryway.

“Dad, we’re almost graduating! You’re going to come see us, right?” the twins shouted in unison, running toward him with obvious excitement.

Estorh smiled with that mix of pride and distance that had lately characterized him, hugging them tightly.

“Of course, princesses. I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”

Marco, on the other hand, stayed seated on the living-room sofa, watching his father from a distance. He accepted the bill Estorh held out as his allowance, but his expression remained cold.

“Champ… why don’t you come say hello?” Estorh asked, frowning. “Has your mother said something to you?”

“No…” the boy answered curtly, without looking him in the eyes.

Estorh let out a sigh heavy with frustration and turned toward you, who were watching the scene from the kitchen doorway.

“{{user}}, I told you to talk to him,” his tone was low but clearly annoyed. “We’re a family. I’m his father. You shouldn’t be poisoning our children’s minds against me.”

His heavy gaze fixed on you—that mixture of reproach and arrogance you knew so well. Even though he no longer lived there, he still acted as if he had the right to demand and correct.

The visit Estorh had planned did not go as he expected. {{user}} kept insisting on reminding him of those hurtful words and bringing them back to life, and Marco wouldn’t even look at him. The allowance bill lay discarded on the table as if it were worthless. Estorh still couldn’t understand how a child so young could treat him with such coldness.

He left the house that had once been his. He had already chosen.

The cold air of the street struck his face the moment he closed the door. A dirty wind, thick with dry leaves and the smell of asphalt wet from the drizzle that was just beginning to fall. His shoes echoed on the wooden porch—tap, tap, tap—until he saw that silhouette approaching along the garden path.

Eithan. As tall as him, maybe a centimeter shorter, wearing that leather jacket that tried to make him look younger. In one hand he carried a plastic bag with containers of hot food; steam fogged the inside. In the other, a large plastic cup of that juice from the corner market, the same one he used to buy when he ate dinner with his family.

Something twisted in Estorh’s stomach. A hot, dirty knot he couldn’t tell was rage or pure shame.

Eithan saw him. He stopped dead in the middle of the path. Raised his eyebrows and then offered that crooked smile of his, the same one he put on at the office when they caught him lying about a report’s due date.

He shrugged. A small, sincere gesture, without drama.

“Oops.” He lifted the bag a couple of centimeters, pointing to it as if it were obvious. “I should’ve stayed smoking in the car five minutes longer. Sorry, brother.”

Brother. He called him brother with his mouth full of the food he was bringing to his wife. To his ex-wife.

Estorh clenched the car keys in his pocket. The metal teeth dug into his palm again. Good. Let them dig in.

“Don’t worry.” His voice came out flat, lower than usual, with that edge he used when he closed a balance sheet at the office and didn’t want anyone talking to him. “No, it’s your house. You don’t have to wait outside.”

Silence. One of those that settles in the ears like wet cotton.

Eithan clicked his tongue. A soft tsk barely audible over the drizzle. He switched the bag to the other hand and settled the juice cup against his chest.

“How’s Vic?” he asked without looking at him, focused on his wet boots. “I heard you moved into the downtown apartment. The one with the river view.”

There it was. The bullfighter sizing up the bull. Asking about Victoria as if he were asking about the weather.

Estorh ran his tongue along the inside of his lip. He felt the short stubble scrape his thumb when he brought it to the corner of his mouth, that tic he’d carried since he was nineteen.

“Fine.” Dry. Cutting. “She’s fine.”

He wasn’t going to give him more. Let him choke on that.

Eithan nodded slowly, like someone who already knew the answer before asking and only wanted to confirm he was still the same emotionally closed idiot as always.

Then he looked up. And there it was: that dark gray gaze, the one he put on when he was about to say a truth you’d rather not hear.

“Hey. Before you go.” He shifted his weight onto the other foot; the bag rustled between his fingers. “About the twins’ graduation. Saturday.”

“{{user}} asked me if I could be the gift godfather.” He said it slowly, measuring him. “You know, that Canadian tradition your mother-in-law puts together… the godfather who hands over the envelope at the head table. I said yes. But I wanted to tell you myself, not have you find out there, in the middle of the room.”

The knot in his stomach turned into a stone. A hot stone with sharp edges that rose to his throat and lodged right under his Adam’s apple.

Gift godfather. His daughters. His fucking gift godfather. The one who would sit next to the mother at the head table. The place that belonged to him.

“How thoughtful.” He tilted his head and let out a short, dry, humorless laugh. “A round of applause, Eithan. Seriously. Very chivalrous of you.”

He took a step toward the car. The sole of his shoe slipped a little on the wet asphalt. He steadied himself on the side mirror. Strength. Don’t let it show.

“You know what’s the best part of this?” He turned halfway toward him, hand still on the mirror. “That {{user}} is right. You’re an excellent choice. Punctual, organized, you bring passion-fruit juice. You’d make an impeccable gift godfather.”

Eithan didn’t laugh. He didn’t get offended either. He just looked at him with that neutral face of his, the one he put on when someone at the office insulted a person who couldn’t defend themselves and he decided whether to intervene or let them sink alone.

“Estorh.” His voice dropped a tone. “I’m not taking anything from you, brother. You left. And she asked for help. That’s all.”

In the distance a car honked on the avenue. The drizzle was getting heavier. A thick drop landed on his neck and slid under the broken necktie hanging from his pocket.

Estorh swallowed. He tasted copper in his throat. He brought his hand to the bridge of his nose and pressed.

“I’ll be there on Saturday.” His voice came out hoarse, almost metallic. “Front row. You’ll do your little gift-godfather number and I’ll clap like everyone else. Are we clear?”

“We’re clear.” Eithan nodded. Without smiling. Without gloating. And that was the part that pissed him off the most: that he wasn’t even enjoying it. “And Estorh… one more thing.”

He took two steps closer. Estorh could smell the passion-fruit juice, the office coffee still on his breath, and that cheap aftershave he put on every morning. He lowered his voice.

“Next time you write her something in a message…” He looked him straight in the eye. “Read it twice before you send it. That’s all.”

He gave him a pat on the arm. Short. Firm. Neither friendly nor hostile.

And he kept walking toward the door of his house.

Estorh stood there, keys digging into his palm, watching Eithan ring the doorbell with his elbow because both hands were full. And inside he heard the rapid footsteps of the twins coming down the stairs, shouting his name with the same excitement they had shouted his three months ago.

Read it twice. Read it twice. Fucking Eithan.

He opened the car door and threw himself inside. The smell of new leather and pine air freshener hit his face. He closed it. He sat with his hands clenched on the steering wheel, knuckles white, jaw locked so tight the molar in the back throbbed like a second heart.

And outside, the door of his house opened. And he heard his daughters’ laughter welcoming someone else.

The twins’ elementary school graduation turned out more uncomfortable than expected. {{user}} had arranged the family seats for her mother, Marco, and Eithan. Estorh, on the other hand, ended up sitting next to the woman who had once been his wife… and next to Victoria.

As if fate were collecting on every one of his failures, the moment for the father-daughter waltz arrived. The twins searched for him with their eyes. They hadn’t counted on their father being all the way back in row fourteen, among the lagging relatives, beside his mother and Victoria.

Estorh stood up clumsily, pushing people aside.

“Twins! Dad’s here…!”

But time was running out. The girls ran and took Eithan’s hands; he accepted naturally and danced with them.

When it was over, the twins looked at their father with relief at seeing that he had actually attended. They asked him to cancel the dinner he had reserved; they preferred to go with their mother and Eithan to Chuck E. Cheese.

It was then that Estorh dared, for the first time in a long while, to lift his head and look directly at {{user}}.

The auditorium was emptying down the center aisle. People dragged folding chairs. Framed diplomas trembled as they were clutched like relics. {{user}} was in profile, talking to a teacher from the music department. She wore a coral dress fitted at the high neckline, her hair gathered in a bun, a few strands escaping at the nape of her neck.

Marco ran toward her down the aisle and wrapped his arms around her waist. {{user}}, without looking, purely by reflex, brought her open palm to her lower belly. That gesture. That fucking gesture. The whole hand, fingers extended, protecting something beneath the coral fabric.

Estorh recognized it instantly. It was the same gesture she made at the supermarket when the twins were eleven weeks along. The same one she made with Marco when someone approached and it wasn’t him.

He looked. He looked carefully, as if it were a financial report with a misplaced decimal. The yellow overhead light fell across the front of the dress and, right below the navel, the fabric did not fall straight. It formed a curve. Small. Very small. The curve that only eyes that had already seen that body three times before with the same shape would recognize.

Thirteen weeks. Twelve. Thirteen. Around there. It was the thirteen-week curve. He had noticed the twins’ at eleven because there were two of them; Marco’s at fifteen because there was only one and she ate less. Thirteen. Fourteen at most.

December. The December argument. The anniversary dinner that ended in a fight. She left the room crying. He slept on the sofa. At four in the morning she came downstairs, eyes swollen, in that old blue pair of pajamas.

“Estorh… just tonight. Just tonight, please. I need you to touch me.”

He didn’t ask. He didn’t speak. He took her on the sofa with the blanket tangled between their legs.

December. January. February. March. Thirteen. Fourteen weeks. It added up. It added up perfectly. Down to the fucking decimal point.

The air caught in his trachea. A dry hhk, very soft, that only he heard. His throat closed as if someone had yanked the knot of his tie backward. His knees loosened half a centimeter. The metal folding chair dug into the back of his thigh because he was letting himself sink without realizing it.

It was his.

It was a fourth Miller.

And she hadn’t said a single fucking word to him in fourteen weeks.

“How long have you known?” His voice came out like gravel against the palate, almost inaudible, very low.

Judith, Estorh’s mother, did not blink. She also did not let go of his elbow.

“Ten days,” she answered in a barely audible voice. “{{user}}’s mother called me. She told me your wife was nauseous again. That she didn’t have the strength to do the housework in March because of the vomiting that wouldn’t stop. That she had been to the obstetrician three times. That it wasn’t a flu. I put the pieces together myself, Estorh. No one gave me details.”

Estorh’s free hand went to his face. Palm against his forehead. Beard scraping his fingers. The sweat was already there, at the hairline, cold and sticky.

“Fucking hell…” He spat the words against his own palm. A muffled mmff. Then again, clenching his teeth. “Fucking hell. Fucking hell fucking hell fucking hell.”

Victoria, to his left, was still there like an expensive piece of furniture no one knows where to put during a move. She leaned toward him.

“Estorh, honey, what…?”

“Shut up.” Without turning his face. Without volume. Pure edge. “One minute. Just one minute. Shut up.”

She drew back half a centimeter and stayed very still. Good. Let her stay.

Estorh looked forward again, through the gap between two grandparents walking toward the exit. {{user}} was still with the teacher. Marco was now glued to her right hip. And she—bitch, beautiful bitch—had left her hand there. On her lower belly. Distracted. Her thumb stroked the fabric above the navel. A three-centimeter movement, up and down… brush, brush… completely unconscious, completely telling, completely his.