I looked back at the letter.
There was still a second page.
*I am writing this now because I think you deserve to know the truth, even if it comes too late to change anything.
I don’t know if you ever married.
I hope you found someone who made you happy.
I hope you built a good life.*
*But there is one more thing I have to tell you.
Something I kept from James as well.
Something that has weighed on me far longer than the lie at the door.*
*When you came to find him that day, you were not alone in your reasons.*
*You were pregnant.*
The letter dropped from my hands.
Anna didn’t move to pick it up.
“Is it true?” I said.
My voice came out as almost nothing.
“Yes,” she said.
Chapter 4: The Child I Never Knew About
The kitchen was very quiet.
Outside, a car passed slowly on the street.
A dog barked twice somewhere down the block.
Inside, neither of us moved.
“You were pregnant,” I said again.
Not a question this time.
Just the words, out loud, because they didn’t feel real yet.
“Yes.”
“And Carol knew.”
Anna looked at me steadily.
“I don’t know exactly what I said at the door that day.
I was nervous.
I may have told her I needed to speak with you urgently.
I may have said more than that.
I honestly don’t remember every word.” She paused.
“But she sent me that letter six months later.
So she knew enough to feel guilty about it.”
I pushed back from the table and stood up.
I needed to move.
I walked to the window and stood there with my back to her.
“What happened?” I said.
“With the baby.”
“I had her,” Anna said.
“I went home to my mother’s house.
I had her there.”
I turned around.
“A girl,” I said.
“A girl.” Anna’s voice was steady, but her hands tightened around the cup.
“I named her Claire.”
The name landed like something physical.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“She’s forty years old,” Anna said.
“She lives about twenty minutes from here.
She has two children of her own.” A pause.
“Your grandchildren, James.
If you want to think of them that way.”
I sat back down because I didn’t trust my legs anymore.
“Does she know about me?”
“She knows your name.
She knows what I told her, which was the truth as I understood it — that you had moved on and didn’t want contact.” Anna’s jaw tightened slightly.
“I told her that because that’s what Carol told me.
I believed it.
I raised her believing it.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know what she believes.” Anna set her cup down.
“I haven’t told her you were coming.
I didn’t know if you would actually show up.
I didn’t know if you’d want to know any of this.” She looked at me directly.
“Do you?”
The question sat between us.
