Naomi spoke carefully. “I’m telling the investigators about the file because it was stored with other records they requested. I wanted you to hear about your letters from me first.”
“Did Victor see them?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer hurt in two directions. If he had seen them, his silence was another choice. If he had not, someone had worked hard to keep us apart, and Victor had let the years pass without trying to reach me himself.
“Why are you calling now?” I asked.
“Because I kept thinking about the girl who sat under that drafting table,” she said. “You deserved a call back.”
After we hung up, I sat on the floor against my kitchen cabinets.
I had spent years telling myself I had done enough. It was true. Still, I could see the cards lined up inside that file, each carrying a small, stubborn hope I thought Victor had rejected.
Blake had kept my letters. Victor had kept his silence. Both had helped build the distance between us.
The following Monday, Victor came to my office. He waited in the public lobby after my assistant told him I was in a meeting. When I came out, I almost walked past him.
He looked tired. His tie was crooked, and he held a plain folder instead of the leather case he usually carried.
“I heard about the letters,” he said.
My assistant quietly stepped away.
“Did you see them?” I asked.
“Not until Friday.”
He opened the folder. Inside were copies of envelopes, their corners worn.
“I went through every one,” he said. “I recognized your handwriting before I opened the first.”
I could not bring myself to reach for the folder.
“You believed I had disappeared,” I said.
“I told people that.”
“Did you believe it?”
He looked at the envelopes. “I made it easy to believe.”
There was no defense in his voice.
“I was furious when you left,” he continued. “For a while, I refused to ask about you. Later, asking meant admitting how long I’d waited. Blake knew that. He kept telling me you wanted nothing to do with the family.”
“You introduced him as your only child.”
“I did.”
I had imagined confronting him with that sentence for years. Hearing him accept it gave me no sudden relief.
