When Jessi opened the door, I expected anger, resentment, maybe even a refusal to speak to me.

I did not expect a little boy to appear behind her. He looked up at me with eyes so much like mine that my breath caught. I asked his age. Jessi answered softly, “Seven.” For a moment, I thought nothing could shock me more. Then she brought out an old letter with my name across the front.

Seven years after our divorce, I stood outside my ex-wife’s house on Christmas Eve, finally prepared to apologize for the misunderstanding and stubbornness that had destroyed our marriage.

Snow was melting into the shoulders of my old Army coat when Jessi opened the door. Before I managed a word, a little boy hurried up behind her in bright red Christmas socks, holding a crooked ornament made from cardboard.

“Mom, the star came off again.”

Then he noticed me.

He stopped and tilted his head, wearing the same doubtful expression I had seen in dozens of my childhood photographs. But his eyes were what made my chest tighten.

Blue-gray.

Exactly like mine.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m Ivan,” I said. “I used to know your mother.”

That was technically true, though painfully incomplete.

There had been a time when I knew how Jessi liked her coffee, which song she hummed while cooking dinner, and why she always left one lamp glowing whenever I was deployed.

The boy noticed the Army patch stitched onto my coat.

“Were you a soldier?”

“Yes.”

His face brightened with obvious curiosity, but Jessi quickly asked him to check the cookies in the kitchen. He obeyed, although he looked back at me twice before disappearing.

The moment we were alone, I asked, “How old is he?”