NO LONGER AT THIS ADDRESS.
My hands began shaking.
“No.”
“There’s more.”
Another photograph appeared.
Ryan, probably twenty-two or twenty-three, stood outside the house where I grew up.
Written across the back:
Came back to Westbridge again. Walter says Claire moved to Sunhaven, Arizona. I don’t believe him anymore.
I whispered:
“I’ve never lived in Arizona.”
“I know.”
I grabbed my car keys.
“Mom?”
I was already headed for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To your grandparents’ house.”
My parents lived outside Briar Glen, a fictional little town twelve miles west of Westbridge.
I made the drive in less than ten minutes.
Dad was in the garage polishing his old Ford when I arrived.
Mom was watering the flowerbeds beside the porch.
Dad smiled.
“There’s the graduate’s mother.”
Then he saw my face.
His smile disappeared.
“Claire?”
I walked straight toward him.
“Did Ryan Caldwell come here after Ethan was born?”
Dad froze.
That was enough.
Mom lowered the hose.
“Oh, God.”
I looked at her.
“You knew?”
Her face crumpled.
I turned back to Dad.
“Did he come here?”
Dad set the rag down.
“Claire, you need to understand—”
“Answer me.”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
One word.
Eighteen years collapsed underneath it.
“And you told him I gave Ethan away?”
Dad looked toward the driveway.
“I told him what I thought would make him leave.”
“Why?”
“You were seventeen!”
“So was he!”
“His family disappeared!”
“His parents took him!”
“We didn’t know that then.”
“But he came back!”
Dad finally shouted.
“Five months later!”
“And that gave you the right to lie?”
“By then you were finally getting your life together!”
I stared at him.
“I had a newborn baby.”
“You were finishing school. You had a plan. You weren’t crying over him every night anymore.”
“So you decided what was best for me?”
“I decided I wasn’t letting that boy destroy your life twice.”
The words hung between us.
“You told him his son was gone.”
Dad’s face cracked.
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“From what?”
“From marrying another eighteen-year-old with no money, no education, no future and a baby!”
“You didn’t know that would happen.”
“I knew enough.”
“No, Dad. You assumed enough.”
Mom began crying.
Dad rubbed his hands over his face.
“You don’t remember how bad it was, Claire.”
“I remember every day.”
“No, you don’t. Every phone call made you think it was him. Every car outside made you run to the window. You barely ate. You waited for him for months.”
His voice shook.
“I hated him for doing that to you.”
For one second, I saw the father I loved.
The man who had held my hand while I gave birth.
The man who had heated bottles at two in the morning.
The grandfather who attended every baseball game Ethan ever played.
That made it worse.
Because villains are easy to hate.
People who love you while hurting you are much harder.
I turned toward Mom.
“What about the letters?”
Dad’s face changed.
Mom started sobbing harder.
My stomach dropped.
“There were letters?”
Neither answered.
“Mom.”
She disappeared inside the house.
A minute later, she returned carrying an old plastic storage box.
I stared at it.
“No.”
She placed it on the hood of Dad’s truck.
Inside were envelopes.
Dozens of them.
Some addressed to me.
Some addressed simply:
FOR MY SON
My hands shook as I opened one.
It had been mailed shortly after Ethan’s first birthday.
The paper inside was brittle at the folds.
Ryan had written:
Claire, I don’t know if you’ll ever see this. Your father says you don’t want me involved. If that is really what you want, I’ll respect it. But please know I didn’t leave because of the baby. My parents took me away. I came back as soon as I could. If there really is a little boy out there who is mine, please tell him I wanted to know him.
I stopped reading.
Everything blurred.
“You kept these?”
Mom wiped her face.
“Your father intercepted the first few.”
“And you?”
“I didn’t know at first.”
“When did you know?”
She looked down.
“When Ethan was six.”
I stared at her.
“Twelve years ago?”
“I was afraid.”
“Of Dad?”
“Of destroying the family.”
I laughed bitterly.
“The family was already damaged, Mom. You just made sure I didn’t know.”
Behind me, a car door slammed.
Ethan had followed me.
Dad looked past my shoulder.
“Ethan.”
My son stared at the box.
Then at his grandfather.
“Is it true?”
Dad swallowed.
“Yes.”
Ethan’s eyes filled.
“Why?”
Dad stepped toward him.
“Son—”
Ethan stepped back.
I had never seen my father look so broken.
“You told my father I had been adopted?”
“I thought I was protecting your mother.”
Ethan’s voice cracked.
“What about me?”
Dad stopped.
“What exactly were you protecting me from?”
Dad had no answer.
That night, the graduation party never happened.
