For the first time, I was afraid that the truth might be worse than not knowing.
When we got home, I slipped the envelope into a kitchen drawer.
Lucas dropped his backpack beside the table.
“Who was that woman?”
“Someone who knew your mom.”
His face immediately brightened.
“Really? What did she say?”
“Not much.”
“Did she know my dad?”
I closed the drawer too quickly.
“I don’t know.”
Lucas watched me.
“You always say that.”
“Because there are things I genuinely don’t know, sweetheart.”
He went quiet.
That was something Teagan used to do too.
I hated seeing it in him.
After Lucas went to bed, I stood alone in the kitchen holding the envelope.
Then I finally opened it.
A photograph slipped onto the counter.
Teagan was standing beside a teenage boy.
I recognized him.
Quiet.
Polite.
He had been inside our house twice while Teagan was pregnant.
I barely remembered speaking to him.
A worn baseball glove was tucked beneath his arm.
Then I unfolded the letter.
Mom,
I know you think I won’t tell you because I don’t trust you.
That isn’t why.
He knows about the baby.
I stopped.
My hands began shaking.
Teagan continued.
He wanted to stay. But wanting something and being ready for it aren’t the same thing.
His family keeps telling him this will ruin everything he planned.
I told him not to come back because he’s afraid of disappointing them.
If he comes back, I need it to be because he chooses us himself.
Then I reached the line that broke something open inside me.
You kept asking who he was, but you never asked why I was scared.
I lowered the letter.
A memory came rushing back.
One night during her pregnancy, Teagan had walked into the kitchen.
“Mom, can I ask you something?”
I had been tired.
I didn’t even look up.
“If this is about avoiding the father question again, I can’t do this tonight, Tee.”
She stood there for several seconds.
Then she quietly said,
“Never mind.”
For ten years, I remembered that moment as my daughter shutting me out.
Now I wondered if I had been the one who closed the door.
I called Trudy.
She answered on the fourth ring.
“You kept this for ten years.”
“I know.”
“Don’t say that like it makes sense.”
She went quiet.
“Meet me,” I said.
The next day, Trudy was waiting in the back booth of a small diner.
I placed the photograph between us.
“You took care of Teagan?”
“For part of that day.”
“Then why did she give you this letter?”
“She was scared,” Trudy said. “She didn’t think she was going to die, Elizabeth. She was eighteen and about to have a baby.”
That mattered.
Teagan hadn’t written the letter because she knew she was leaving us.
She had simply been frightened.
Trudy continued.
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