The son told his father that he missed his mother.
“Well,” the father said, with a heavy sigh. “I don’t know if she’s coming back.”
The two men were both adults so it was possible to have this conversation play out with more thought, precise pacing and respect, than otherwise would be expected, given that wife and mother left them to find another child. That did not belong to her current husband. And in no way was related to her current son.