I was five here.

Big orange life vest, curls stuck to my forehead, both hands on the wheel like it was my boat.

And that’s Grandpa Lou behind me. Always laughing, always tan, always making up sea rules like “whoever farts first has to swab the deck.”

He was the best.

Except—he never called me by my name.

Never once.

Even in this photo, my mom said she heard him yell, “Attaboy, Mason!”

But Mason’s my older brother.

And Mason never came on these trips.

He hated the water. Wouldn’t get on the boat. Got nervous near docks.

I didn’t think much of it until I found the tapes in the attic last month. Labeled in Grandpa’s handwriting:

“Summer ’92 – Me and Mason’s Boat Days”

But I wasn’t born until ’95.

I sat on the attic floor, the dust tickling my nose. I stared at the label over and over again. Mason’s Boat Days. Summer ’92.

My mom always said Mason was different before I was born. That he was livelier, always laughing, always glued to Grandpa’s side. But something happened, and they stopped being close.

Mason never talked about it. Not even once.

He just stopped going.

I brought the tape down to the living room, heart pounding like I’d just found a secret diary. I didn’t have a VCR, but I remembered Mom kept one of those combo TVs in the garage. The kind with the VHS slot built-in.

Took me an hour to dig it out and find the right cords. But finally, it blinked to life, that old static hiss before the image cleared.

The screen was shaky at first, like the camera was swinging. Then it steadied, and there was Grandpa—leaning back in the captain’s seat, grinning wide.

“Say hi, Mason!”

And the camera turned.

But it wasn’t Mason.

It was me.

Same hair. Same smile. Same laugh I’ve seen in photos since I was a kid.

But the year said 1992 in the corner. I wasn’t even a thought yet.

I paused the tape, heart racing, palms sweating. That couldn’t be me. It didn’t make sense.

But it was.

I played more.

Video after video, summer after summer.

Always Grandpa. Always “Mason.”

Always… me.

I called my mom.

“Hey,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Do we have any home videos from when I was little? Like real little?”

There was a pause. “I think so. But most of them were with your grandpa. Why?”

“Just curious.”

I didn’t tell her about the tapes. Not yet.

Something felt too strange to bring up.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept playing the videos over and over. I started noticing small things.

In one, Grandpa puts his arm around me and says, “This one’s just for us, Mason. Our secret summers, huh?”

In another, I ask, “Will Mom be mad if I come home late?”

And Grandpa laughs. “She don’t need to know everything.”

I was maybe six in that one.

Then there was the tape from what looked like the final summer.

Grandpa’s face looked different—tired, thinner.

He turns the camera to me. I must’ve been eight.

“You’ll remember this when you’re older,” he says. “These were our golden days. Just you and me. No one else needed to understand.”

I rewound that one three times. “No one else needed to understand.”

Why?

Why wouldn’t they?

I finally worked up the nerve to call Mason.

We hadn’t talked in a while. He lived out in Arizona now. Desert guy. Dry land, dry humor. Opposite of Grandpa.

“Hey,” I said, after he picked up. “Can I ask you something weird?”

He groaned. “What did you find?”

“Why’d you stop going out on the boat with Grandpa?”

Silence.

Long enough that I thought he hung up.

“Mason?”

He sighed. “He told me to.”

“What?”

“I was maybe seven,” he said. “One morning, Grandpa told me the boat wasn’t mine anymore. That someone else needed it more.”

My stomach dropped.

“Someone else?”

“He never said who. Just… ‘he’s coming soon, and he’ll need me more than you do.’ I thought he meant a friend or something. But then Mom got pregnant with you.”

He stopped.

“Oh,” I said.

“After you were born, he never invited me back. Wouldn’t even let me near the dock. I thought I did something wrong.”

I felt like the floor opened beneath me.

“Mason,” I said slowly, “do you remember those summers before I was born?”

“Not really. They all blur. Why?”

I told him about the tapes.

The ones from ’92. The ones with me in them.

Except I wasn’t born yet.

Silence again.

He laughed nervously. “You sure it’s not just me? I mean, maybe we looked alike back then.”

“It’s not you. I know your face. It’s me. It’s… I don’t know how, but it’s me.”

Mason didn’t respond.

I didn’t blame him.

The next morning, I drove to Mom’s.

I didn’t say anything right away.

Just asked if she remembered those summers.

“The boating ones?” she said, smiling. “Yeah. You and Dad used to fight about it. He thought Grandpa was playing favorites.”

“Was he?”

She hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe. But you loved it out there. It made you light up. I couldn’t take that from you.”

I asked if she had any old photos.

She pulled out a dusty shoebox from the closet.

Inside, a photo from 1992.

Grandpa and a kid on the boat.

Again—it was me.

Same curls. Same dimple on my left cheek. Same scar on my chin from the bike accident.

“Mom,” I said. “This can’t be me, right?”

She looked closely. Her brow furrowed. “That’s weird,” she muttered.

“That’s me, right?”

“It looks like you. But… you weren’t born until—”

“I know.”

She stared at the photo for a long time.

Then she said something I’ll never forget.

“Your grandfather used to say time wasn’t real. That some people were meant to find each other no matter when they were born.”

I waited.

“He said Mason and him weren’t a good fit. That they didn’t click the way he hoped. But then you came along, and it was like he already knew you.”

I asked if that ever struck her as strange.

She nodded.

“But your grandpa was always a little strange.”

I left with the shoebox and a thousand more questions.

That night, I watched the final tape again.

This time, I noticed something new.

At the end, right before the screen went black, Grandpa leaned close to the camera.

He whispered, “I’m sorry, Mason. This was the only way to make it right.”

I paused it there.

Stared at his face.

Something about his eyes.

Regret.

Like he’d taken something that wasn’t his.

And then it clicked.

What if… what if I wasn’t supposed to be Mason?

What if I was Mason?

What if, somehow, Grandpa had seen the future?

What if he’d been trying to rewrite something?

I couldn’t sleep.

For weeks, I couldn’t get it out of my head.

Then I went back to the attic.

One more time.

That’s when I found the letter.

Tucked in the bottom of the box.

Yellowed, sealed, addressed in Grandpa’s handwriting.

“To the boy I couldn’t save the first time.”

My hands shook.

I opened it.

The letter was short.

Just a page.

“Sometimes the world gives you a second chance and you don’t ask why. You just grab it with both hands and hold on. I knew the moment you smiled at me on that boat that it wasn’t a memory—it was a promise. Maybe I failed Mason the first time. Maybe I pushed too hard, didn’t listen enough. But when I saw you, I saw the same eyes, the same fear, the same hope. So I did what I couldn’t do before. I loved better. I listened more. I let you lead. I hope someday you’ll understand. This wasn’t about erasing the past. It was about honoring it.”

I sat there for a long time.

Crying, mostly.

Not because I understood everything.

But because I felt seen.

He’d made mistakes with Mason. Deep ones.

But he tried to heal them with me.

He didn’t call me by my name because, to him, I was a chance to love again.

Not to repeat.

But to repair.

I called Mason again.

Told him about the letter.

He was quiet.

Then he asked to see the tapes.

He flew in two weeks later.

We spent three nights watching them.

Laughing, crying.

He saw what I saw.

Him, and me, and neither of us.

But mostly—Grandpa.

Trying his best.

Trying to love two boys in the only way he knew how.

The next summer, Mason came with me to the lake.

We brought Grandpa’s old boat out of the shed.

Fixed her up. Cleaned the rust. Repainted the name: “Lou’s Second Chance.”

And this time, Mason got behind the wheel.

I sat beside him, watching the sun set across the water.

“You know,” he said, “he was a pain in the ass.”

“Yeah,” I laughed. “But he loved us.”

He nodded.

“Maybe not in the right order. But he got there.”

Sometimes, life doesn’t make sense right away.

Sometimes, people mess up the first time.

But that doesn’t mean love isn’t real.

It just means it takes a few tries to get it right.

If you ever get a second chance—grab it.

Don’t ask why.

Just hold on tight.

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