Part 1
I came home from work on my 25th birthday expecting nothing more than leftover takeout and a few texts from friends.
Instead, there was a woman standing on my porch.
She was holding a small birthday present, and for a second I honestly thought my tired brain had made her up. She was older than I remembered, and thinner. There was gray at her temples now that hadn’t been there before. But I knew those eyes the moment I saw them. I’d looked up into them through every scraped knee and bad dream of my childhood.
“Anna?”
My knees nearly buckled.
She looked at me like someone who had been holding her breath for twelve years and had finally been allowed to let it out.
“Happy birthday, George.”
My eyes dropped to the box in her hands. It was wrapped in faded yellow paper covered in tiny white stars. I knew that paper. She’d used it on every birthday present she ever gave me when I was a kid.
“I never got to give you this,” she said quietly.
I didn’t reach for it. I just stood there staring at her, and the first thing that came out of my mouth was the sentence I’d been told so many times it had hardened into fact.
“My dad said you stole from us.”
Something in her face went tight.
“Of course he did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She glanced past me toward the house, as if checking that we were alone, then stepped closer.
“Your dad thought he’d gotten rid of me.”
A chill went down my spine.
“Gotten rid of you? What are you talking about?”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she reached into her coat and pulled out a worn, slightly yellowed envelope. My name was written on the front in handwriting I didn’t recognize. The postmark was twelve years old.
She pressed it into my hands. They were shaking.
“George,” she said, “your father has been lying to you since the day you were born.”
“What is this?”
