“No, Lucy. That woman let our daughter think she was abandoned.”
His voice cracked on the last word, and that was what finally broke me.
It was my father almost crying in my kitchen because someone had stolen years from me and from Leo.
My son crossed the room and put his arms around me.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t know it was going to be like this.”
I pulled back and grabbed his face. “Don’t apologize for telling me the truth, honey. I need you to know that I’m not mad at you.”
His voice cracked on the last word.
His eyes were wet, too.
“So, he didn’t leave?” he asked.
I pressed my hand over my mouth and shook my head.
“No, baby. I think he was kept from us.”
The kitchen went silent.
A minute later, Leo said, “Gwen wants to meet us. She says she still has the box.”
That was all it took to get us moving.
The kitchen went silent.
***
By six, Leo and I were in my car heading two counties over, with my parents following in Dad’s truck like this was now a family operation.
Leo kept rereading Gwen’s messages. I kept both hands on the wheel because if I let go, I thought I might come apart.
Gwen lived in a small white house with flowerpots drooping on the porch. My parents promised to stay in the truck unless we needed them. She opened the door before we knocked.
She had Andrew’s mouth. That nearly took my knees out.
Leo kept rereading Gwen’s messages.
“Heather?” she asked.
I nodded.
She started crying. “I’m so sorry.”
Then she looked at Leo and covered her mouth. “Oh my God. Sweetie, you look just like him.”
Leo glanced at me, helpless.
I stepped forward and hugged her.
“I’m so sorry.”
***
Inside, she didn’t waste time.
“The box is upstairs,” she said. “It has as many of his letters as I could find.”
“You really have all of them?” Leo asked quietly.
Gwen nodded. “I found them after our mother died last winter.”
She led us up to the attic. It was hot and smelled like old paper.
Then she knelt by a storage bin and lifted the lid.
“The box is upstairs.”
Letters. Stacks of them, along with birthday cards and returned envelopes, my name in Andrew’s handwriting.
My legs gave out, and I sat on the floor.
Leo dropped beside me.
Gwen handed me the first envelope with both hands, like it might tear.
“Start there,” she said.
I opened it.
Leo dropped beside me.
“Heather,
I know this looks bad. Please don’t believe I left you. I’m trying to come back. I promise.
— A.”
The air left my lungs.
“Mom?” Leo whispered.
I couldn’t answer. I grabbed another letter.
“I don’t know if you hate me. My mother says you do. I don’t believe her, but I don’t know how to reach you otherwise.”
“Oh no, no, no,” I muttered.
“I know this looks bad.”
Leo moved closer. “What is it?”
“He thought I hated him.”
Gwen let out a shaky breath. “That’s what our mother told him. She didn’t just lie, Heather. She stole eighteen years from all of you.”
I opened the third letter so fast I almost tore it.
“If it’s a boy, I hope he laughs like you do when you’re really happy.”
My hand flew to my mouth.
Leo stared at me. “He wrote that.”
“He thought I hated him.”
I nodded and passed him one of the birthday cards.
“Read it,” I said.
He opened it carefully.
Inside, the handwriting was Andrew’s.
“To my child,
I don’t know if you’ll ever see this. But if your mom tells you I loved her, believe that with your entire heart.”
Nobody spoke.
Then Leo looked at Gwen. “You knew about this?”
“I don’t know if you’ll ever see this.”
“I didn’t know about the letters then,” Gwen said. “I was away at college, and my mother had already decided I was a disgrace, so nobody told me anything unless they had to. Andrew called me after they moved, frantic. He told me Heather was pregnant, and that Mom wouldn’t let him go back.”
“I just wanted him to stay…” I whispered.
“I know,” Gwen said. “But I didn’t learn that until much later. By then, she’d already lied to both of you.”
Leo stared at the box in his lap. “So that’s it?” he asked. “He wanted us, and all this time we thought he walked away?”
“She’d already lied to both of you.”
Gwen wiped her face. “He didn’t walk away. Three years ago, he was driving home from a job when a truck ran a red light. He died before they got him to the hospital.”
“My dad’s really gone?”
“Yes.”
Gwen gave me Andrew’s school photo and the worn pregnancy test I’d given him eighteen years ago. “After our mother got sick, she gave the letters back. He kept every one. He was going to try again.”
Gwen wiped her face.
***
Outside, after I told my parents the truth, my dad cleared his throat. “Let’s get you home, kid.”
On the drive back, Leo fell asleep with a hand on the box. At a red light, I looked over at him and finally understood the truth of everything.
For eighteen years, I thought I was the girl Andrew ran from.
I wasn’t.
Leave a Comment