—
At sunrise, I strapped Nora into her car seat and drove to the address written on the oldest envelope.
The house seemed smaller than I remembered.
The garden looked almost exactly the same.
An older man opened the front door.
He was thinner than I had imagined, but the eyes told me immediately who he was.
William.
He looked at me for several seconds.
“You look exactly like your mother.”
I held Nora tighter.
“I need to speak with Caleb.”
“Caleb isn’t available.”
“Then tell me why he left.”
William glanced at Nora.
“Come inside. We can talk about this like adults.”
“I want an answer.”
His gaze dropped to Nora’s face.
For one brief second, something changed in his expression.
Recognition.
Then it disappeared.
His jaw tightened.
“He knew about the pregnancy. He chose to leave.”
His voice became perfectly calm.
“That is the answer you drove all this way for. Take your daughter and go home.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That is not my concern. Please get off my porch.”
I stepped backward into the garden.
Suddenly, something opened inside my memory.
A woman crying at a doorway.
My mother’s hand gripping mine.
A man’s voice following us down these same steps.
“Don’t come back.”
Then another image.
A little boy running barefoot behind us.
Mismatched eyes.
Caleb.
He was crying, too.
And then I remembered his hand holding the back of my red bicycle while I screamed at him not to let go.
“I won’t. Keep going.”
I reached the middle of the driveway before stopping.
Nora shifted against my chest.
William wanted me to believe that little boy had grown into a man capable of abandoning his daughter without looking back.
Maybe he had.
But I wasn’t going to accept William’s version of the story.
I turned around.
“William.”
He stared at me.
“I am not leaving until Caleb himself stands in front of me and tells me he does not want his daughter.”
His face hardened.
“You are being hysterical.”
