I found my childhood drawings in an old box and finally understood why Mom called me by a different name during her last year. She looked at me with empty eyes and whispered, “Leo, don’t go…” while I—Alex, her only son—clenched my fists from helplessness and hurt. Back then, I thought illness was taking my mother away from me. But when I opened that box in the attic, I realized the illness only tore the veil off what she’d hidden all her life.
After the funeral, the house was unbearably silent. Before, at least she was breathing somewhere in the room, mumbling things to forgotten children from the past, but now only the walls and the smell of her medicine remained. I came to sort out the apartment because I had to figure out selling it. Money was tight, and I didn’t plan to live in this city anymore.
I wandered from room to room, unable to bring myself to open her closet. There hung the same dresses from twenty years ago. Mom lived very modestly: old dishes, worn towels, yellowed photos in frames. In every one — just me and her. Not a single man, not a single relative. As a child, I thought that’s just how we lived: just the two of us against the world. She always said, “The main thing, Alex, is that we have each other.” And for some reason, she always hesitated slightly on the word “each other.”
I found the box by accident. I only climbed to the attic because the real estate agent said, “Better clear everything out; no one will want these things anyway.” In a corner, under an old blanket, stood a dusty cardboard box with aged tape darkened by time. On the lid was roughly written: “LEO.” The name Mom called me in her last months.
My heart trembled. At first, I thought it was just one of her forgotten imaginary characters. In recent years she often talked to those I couldn’t see. But inside, under layers of old newspapers, were tiny T-shirts, children’s shoes, a faded plush teddy bear. And neatly folded sheets—drawings. A boy and a woman. On the back of almost every one was written in a child’s hand: “Me and Mom. Leo.”
I sat right on the floor. My hands shook. On one drawing, a boy was holding a man’s hand. Caption: “Me, Mom, and Dad.” Dad… The word that never existed in my home. I flipped another page. A woman and a boy standing by the sea. “Thank you, Mom, for taking me to the sea. Leo.” I had never been to the sea with her. We hardly ever traveled anywhere at all.
At the bottom of the box was a thin folder filled with papers. I opened it and felt my mouth go dry. A birth certificate: “Leo, son of…” followed by a foreign last name, a different patronymic. A photograph — a woman who looked a lot like my mother but younger, and a boy of about five, grinning ear to ear. The very same plush bear in his hands.
I flipped through the documents: certificates, letters, some medical reports. Suddenly—a worn envelope addressed to my mother. I recognized her maiden name. The letter was dated the year I turned three. I unfolded the paper, and the lines blurred before my eyes.
“I can’t do it, I can’t manage anymore. After the accident, the doctor said Leo will have seizures, and I’m scared to be alone with him. You’ve always been stronger than me. Please take him in. He loves you like his own. Forgive me, I just can’t bear it.”
Signed—the name my mother never said aloud. Her own sister.
I read it again. Take him in. He loves you like your own. My head buzzed like someone had turned the TV up to full volume. I opened another document. A custody decision for temporary transfer of the child to a relative. Term—one year. In the margin, in Mom’s handwriting: “I won’t give him back.”
I froze. My name was Alex since childhood. That’s what Mom called me, that’s what was written on my certificate. But now in my hands were documents for another boy, another child. Leo. Whom she took in when I was three. But I remembered no Leo. In my memory—only me and Mom, starting from about age four. Before that—blurred shadows.
I suddenly recalled waking up as a child to screams in the night. Mom would run over and hold me tight, whispering, “Hush, hush, it’s just a nightmare.” Sometimes she’d say, “Leo, I’m here…” I thought I had just misheard.
In the folder, among the papers, lay another photo. Hospital room, white walls, iron bed. A pale boy, but smiling. Next to him—my mother. On the back, in her precise handwriting: “Leo after a seizure. He’s so brave.” Date… exactly one month before the day our life was known as “the day we moved and started fresh.”
I searched frantically. At the very bottom, a short newspaper clipping: “As a result of an accident in a house on such-and-such street, a child left unattended died…” The address… our old home. Year… that very year.
My throat tightened with a prickling sensation. For the first time, I dared to think the thought my mind had fiercely pushed away: If Leo died… then who am I?
I approached the dusty old mirror where Mom had fixed her hair every day. Before me stood a grown man with tired eyes. Suddenly, I saw that boy from the photos in myself—not exactly, but the features, the gaze… I was terrified.
And then I remembered how I fell down the stairs at seven. The doctor asked Mom thoroughly if I had ever had seizures or head injuries. She answered too quickly: “No, he’s always been healthy.” At night, thinking I was asleep, she sat by my bed whispering, “I won’t let anyone take you away, do you hear me? No one.”
At the bottom of the folder was a small note, clearly torn from a notebook. Just one sentence, in the same handwriting: “Now you are Alex. I couldn’t save you then, but I can now.”
The room spun. Mom… what did you do? Took in a sick nephew, lost him in a tragic accident. Then, when child services came for the boy, there was only a healthy three-year-old Alex in the house. Or… did she take me instead of the dead boy? Changed the papers, moved away, cut off everyone and everything? I tried to build a logical chain, but every theory shattered the other.
I sat on the floor among scattered drawings and cried harder than I had even at the funeral. All my childhood grievances against her coldness, the strange restrictions, the lack of friends or family suddenly seemed so small. She lived in constant fear someone would come and say: “This child is not yours.” And when her memory started to fade, she returned to where she first held a little boy she vowed to protect at any cost.
Her last words to me in the hospital sounded different now. Then I nearly got angry: she looked at the ceiling and whispered, “Leo, forgive me… I couldn’t save you then, but I tried, really…” I squeezed her hand and said, “Mom, it’s me, Alex.” She looked at me strangely and replied, “You’ve always been my boy. No matter what your name is.”
Now I understood it wasn’t just the words of a dying woman. It was her only excuse. For herself.
I stayed until dark, until the sun disappeared behind the rooftops and the room filled with cold. Finally, I gathered all the drawings, letter, photographs, and carefully folded them back into the box. With a trembling hand, I added on the lid over the old inscription: “Alex.”
I went downstairs, placed the box in the center of the room, and understood I couldn’t sell this apartment. There was too much here—not only pain but love, albeit twisted, terrifying, flawed. The love of a woman who may have stolen someone’s life to save another, or perhaps desperately tried to hold onto at least one boy after losing the other.
I will never know the full truth. But looking at the teddy bear with the torn ear, I suddenly felt I had no right to judge her. I took the toy in my hands and quietly whispered into the empty room:
— Thank you, Mom… for being real to at least one of us.
There was no answer. Only the old house creaked, as if it sighed with me. And somewhere between the names Alex and Leo, between truth and lies, between guilt and forgiveness, there finally appeared what we never had—peace.
