We met the next afternoon.
This time, I wasn’t there to discuss Lucas’s father.
I was there for my daughter.
“Was Teagan scared?”
Trudy’s expression softened.
“Yes.”Find an OBGYN
“Was she alone?”
“No. There were people with her the entire time.”
The answer hit me harder than I expected.
“Did she ask for me?”
“Yes.”
My throat tightened.
“Did she think I had left?”Study Biology
“No. She knew you were waiting nearby.”
“What did she say?”
Trudy thought for a moment.
“She was worried she hadn’t bought enough diapers.”
I laughed through my tears.
“That sounds exactly like her.”
“Then she talked about you.”Support Causes
I looked up.
“What did she say?”
“She said you made pancakes too thick and refused to admit it.”
A laugh escaped me.
Even after ten years, Teagan could still embarrass me.
Then Trudy said,
“She wasn’t angry with Browse Art Prints
you.”
“She should have been. I spent so much time asking about Lucas’s father that I forgot to ask my own daughter what she was afraid of.”Plan Family Trips
“Maybe,” Trudy said. “But that isn’t what she left me with.”
I asked the question I had carried for a decade.
“Did she know I loved her?”
Trudy answered immediately.
“Yes.”
That was the first thing she had given me that didn’t feel like another wound.Find an OBGYN
That evening, Lucas found the photograph on the kitchen table.
“That’s him, isn’t it?”
My first instinct was to hide it.
Instead, I turned off the faucet, dried my hands, and sat across from him.
“Yes.”
“Did he know about me?”
