I swallowed.
“Would you like to meet?”
He answered immediately.
“More than anything.”
⸻
The following Saturday, I drove to Hendersonville.
Thomas lived in a small white house with a vegetable garden and a porch swing.
He was waiting outside when I pulled into the driveway.
He looked older than the man in the photograph.
Of course he did.
Forty years had passed.
But I recognized his eyes.
He recognized mine.
For a moment, we just stood there.
Then he held out his hand.
I looked at it.
And suddenly remembered being twelve years old, shaking hands with a stranger in the park.
I stepped forward and hugged him instead.
He held on tightly.
“Your mother would have loved this,” he whispered.
I pulled back.
“Caroline?”
He shook his head.
“Rebecca.”
I felt tears sting my eyes.
“Can you tell me about her?”
Thomas smiled through his own tears.
“I’ve been waiting thirty-nine years for someone to ask.”
⸻
We spent the entire afternoon talking.
He showed me photographs of Rebecca as a little girl.
She had my eyes.
She loved animals.
She played the piano badly but enthusiastically.
She wanted to become a teacher.
Thomas told me he’d made terrible mistakes as a father.
When Rebecca became pregnant, he’d reacted with anger instead of compassion.
She left home believing she wasn’t welcome.
By the time he understood what he’d done, she was gone.
He tried to find her.
Then he learned she’d died.
And that she’d had a son.
He’d spent years searching.
When he finally found me, he discovered that I was loved and safe.
So he stepped aside.
“I thought I’d have more time,” he said.
“To do what?”
“To tell you everything when you were grown.”
He looked toward the garden.
