Three Losses, One Second Chance

Peeling paint covered the walls, and rust stained the red steel window frame that divided Ethan Carter from the outside world. Beyond the glass, the rooflines of old row houses filled half the sky, while the tar-paper roofs and sagging shingles of the neighboring houses were scattered together in a chaotic patchwork.

The southwest-facing window received very little sunlight, leaving the room dim even in the middle of a summer afternoon.

Beside the window stood a glass-topped table. Against the wall on its left sat a bulky cassette radio bearing a faded red Sparrow logo.

That old radio, along with the stack of cassette tapes beside it, had accompanied Ethan Carter through most of his school years. The radio could still pick up a few stations, though they were usually buried beneath layers of static.

The rest of the room was just as old.

An aging oak wardrobe stood against one wall, followed by a bedside table, a narrow bookcase, and a twin bed with a wooden frame his father had built by hand.

It was the room Ethan Carter had slept in since childhood.

If not for the persistent rumors that developers would eventually buy up the whole neighborhood and pay out the residents, he probably would have sold the old house years ago.

But there was one thing he had never been able to throw away.

A small photograph sat on the edge of the glass-topped table.

In it, his mother, Margaret Carter, held five-year-old Ethan in her arms at a park. The photograph had yellowed with age, its edges slightly curled.

It was the only photograph of his mother he kept outside the drawers.

The rest of her old black-and-white photographs had been tucked away at the back of the bookcase, where he rarely looked at them.

His mother had been an eccentric woman.

Their relationship had never been simple. They loved each other, but they fought constantly. They were like sworn enemies who couldn't live without one another and couldn't stand being in the same room for too long.

Ethan Carter had never been what anyone would call a model student.

Even back when teachers were expected to write encouraging comments on report cards, his kindergarten evaluation had contained a particularly memorable suggestion:

The teacher hopes Ethan Carter will fight less, stop running around, and pay more attention to where he's going.

His parents were sometimes called to school twice a week.

And whenever that happened, Margaret Carter rarely bothered with lectures.

She preferred a wire hanger.

Ethan would run through the hallway while his mother chased after him, waving the hanger and shouting his name.

Looking back, he couldn't exactly blame her.

He really had been a handful.

Instead of focusing on his studies, he spent most of his childhood buried in adventure novels and comic books. He gradually built a fantasy world inside his head and developed an inexplicable sense of confidence in himself.

The problem wasn't dreaming.

The problem was believing he was destined to be the protagonist.

Reality eventually taught him otherwise.

His grades remained poor throughout school, and his SAT scores were a disaster. In the end, he barely managed to get into a college that accepted anyone who could afford the tuition.

After graduation, things didn't improve.

He hit one wall after another in the workforce, failed repeatedly, and slowly lost whatever confidence he had once possessed.

Whenever life became unbearable, he returned to this old house.

Just like today.

He drank until the world became blurry, then collapsed onto the bed and let sleep take him away.

Now, lying there with a throbbing headache, Ethan wasn't expecting some sudden moment of enlightenment.

He had already learned enough about life to know that understanding something didn't necessarily prevent you from suffering through it.

He closed his eyes.

Looking back on the first half of his life, he could identify three great losses.

The first was his wasted youth.

He had ambition but not enough ability to match it, and worse, he had often used whatever intelligence he possessed in the wrong direction. He eventually achieved a little success, but whenever he remembered the years he had wasted and the hardships that followed, regret still crept into his heart.

The second was his arrogance.

He had ignored opportunities because he thought better ones would eventually come along. He had failed to recognize the road he should have taken and, in doing so, missed countless chances.

He had also disappointed people who had once believed in him.

But the third loss hurt the most.

He had failed to repay his parents.

His poor grades, repeated failures, and uncertain future had caused them years of worry.

His mother, especially, had paid for his mistakes with her health.

Margaret Carter had run a small fruit stand to support him.

To get good fruit at a reasonable price, she had to wake up at two or three in the morning and drive to the wholesale produce market. If she arrived too late, the best produce would already have been taken by the earlier buyers.

She would return around five in the morning, arrange the fruit at her stand, and work until late.

Her meals were irregular. Her sleep was worse.

Even when fruit began to rot, she hated throwing it away. She would often eat it herself rather than waste it.

People weren't nearly as particular about such things back then.

Over the years, Margaret Carter developed chronic stomach pain.

She ignored it.

She couldn't afford to stop working, and she kept telling everyone it was nothing serious.

By the time she finally went to the hospital, it was already too late.

The doctors told them it was stage four.

At that time, Ethan was working far away in Chicago.

The moment he received the news, he rushed home.

His father, Robert Carter, was already ill himself, yet he stayed beside his wife and took care of her as best he could.

Ethan stayed too.

He watched his mother grow thinner day by day.

Her once round body gradually became so thin that she looked almost like a wire hanger beneath the hospital sheets.

There were days when Ethan could barely keep his eyes open from exhaustion.

But he refused to leave.

He stayed beside her until the very end.

And when Margaret Carter finally ran out of strength, it felt as though the last bit of vitality had been drained from the entire family.

Even after all these years, Ethan could still remember the final moment.

His mother's hand had been wrapped around his.

He had expected her last words to be some piece of advice.

Perhaps a mother's regret.

Perhaps a final hope for her son.

Instead, she had simply looked at him and whispered:

"I'm so hungry, Ethan. I'm so hungry..."

Ethan's eyes burned.

His nose stung.

Tears slowly rolled down his cheeks.

He had lost count of how many times he had broken down like this in the old house.

But every time he remembered those final words, the pain felt just as fresh.

He finally understood that the greatest loss in life wasn't wasted youth.

It wasn't the regret of growing older and realizing that the carefree days of youth could never be bought back.

The greatest loss was much simpler.

It was when the tree wanted to remain still, but the wind refused to stop.

It was when a child finally wanted to care for his parents, only to discover that they were already gone.

Ethan Carter had experienced all three losses in the first half of his life.

And perhaps that was why he had never truly forgiven himself.

...

The dim light in the room gradually faded as evening settled outside the red steel window.

At some point, Ethan fell asleep.

The light on the wall slowly changed as the hours passed.

The pale gold of late afternoon deepened to orange, then crimson, and finally faded into darkness.

When morning came, the light in the room was bright and clear enough to reveal tiny specks of dust floating in the air.

Then came the knocking.

At first, it was soft.

Then it became louder.

And more impatient.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Ethan stirred beneath the blanket.

His head felt strangely clear.

He slowly opened his eyes and squinted against the bright morning light filling the room.

A meter reader?

Or maybe someone had come to collect an unpaid utility bill.

He rarely stayed in this old house anymore. He only returned every few months.

What utility bill could he possibly owe?

Could the water company have made a mistake?

His irritation immediately flared.

"Damn it. I'm calling 311!"

The knocking became even louder.

Ethan frowned and shouted, "Who is it? What kind of lunatic keeps knocking like that?"

The moment the words left his mouth, he froze.

Something was wrong.

His voice didn't sound like his own.

It wasn't hoarse or heavy.

It sounded young.

Very young.

Ethan sat up abruptly.

The usual heaviness of a hangover was gone.

His head didn't hurt.

His mouth didn't taste of alcohol.

And there was no smell of liquor on his breath.

His heart began to pound.

Before he could make sense of it, the key hanging in the lock suddenly turned.

Click.

The door swung open.

A round, plump woman with curly hair stood in the doorway.

Her face was filled with irritation.

"Ethan! Do you know what time it is?"

She stepped inside, glaring at him.

"The sun is already this high, and you're still sleeping! Your dad has already gone to work. The oatmeal I made for you is turning to paste!"

She pointed toward the table.

"Get up! Eat your oatmeal and go to school!"

Ethan stared at her.

His blood seemed to stop flowing.

There was no dim evening light anymore.

No old, empty room filled with the silence of a middle-aged man's loneliness.

It was morning.

The morning light was bright.

The oatmeal on the table was still steaming.

And the woman standing in front of him...

was his mother.

Margaret Carter.

The mother who had been dead for years.

Ethan stared at her in disbelief.

Then he slowly looked down at his own hands.

They were small.

Thin.

Young.

For the first time in decades, he was looking at the hands of a boy.

His breathing stopped.

Time had not simply passed him by.

Somehow...

time had brought him back.