“I’m his father.”
“You are the man who fathered him. What happens next depends on what you choose to do now.”
He swallowed.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Write him a letter.”
“A letter?”
“Tell him who you are. Tell him why you weren’t there. And tell him why you’re here now.”
He nodded.
“And don’t blame Teagan.”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t get credit for finally showing up ten years late,” I said. “But you do get a chance to decide what kind of man you’re going to be from this point forward.”
Two days later, an envelope appeared on my porch.
Lucas’s name was written across the front.
I hated opening something addressed to him.
But Lucas was ten, and I was still responsible for protecting him.
One sentence stayed with me.
I was scared when I was eighteen, but being scared doesn’t explain ten years.
He asked for no forgiveness.
He blamed no one.
Before I gave the letter to Lucas, I called Trudy again.
“Can we meet?”
She sounded surprised.
“I thought you’d never want to see me again.”
“I didn’t say I forgave you.”
“I understand.”
“There’s something else I need.”
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.”
“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?”
“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.”
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 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.”
“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.
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?”
“Yes.”
“Then why wasn’t he here?”
“He was scared when he was young. He listened to his parents instead of making his own decision.”
Lucas waited.
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