I should have made sure the paperwork was completed properly eleven years ago.
I thought I was helping.
Now I have to make it right.
I looked at Martin.
“Did they fix it?”
“Yes. The adoption was finalized the following year.”
I felt a wave of relief.
“So Caroline was legally my mother.”
“She was.”
“And my grandfather?”
Martin hesitated.
“He was contacted.”
“What happened?”
“He agreed not to challenge the adoption.”
“Why?”
“Because he met you.”
⸻
I didn’t remember meeting Thomas Sloan.
But Eleanor had kept a photograph.
Martin took it from the folder.
It showed a gray-haired man sitting on a park bench.
Beside him was a skinny boy holding a basketball.
Me.
I recognized the park immediately.
It was near our old house.
I remembered the afternoon.
My mother had taken me there after school.
A man she’d introduced as an old friend sat with us for nearly an hour.
He asked about basketball.
He asked what subjects I liked.
He bought me an orange soda from a vending machine.
Before we left, he shook my hand.
I remembered thinking it was strange that a grown man would shake hands with a kid.
That man was my grandfather.
I stared at the photograph.
“She never told me.”
Martin shook his head.
“No.”
“Did he know who I was?”
“Yes.”
“Did he want to take me away?”
“No.”
Martin opened another letter.
This one was written by Thomas himself.
I spent eleven years believing my grandson had been taken from me.
Today I met him.
He is healthy, happy, and loved.
Caroline has done what I was unable to do.
I will not take a child away from his mother simply because I have the right to ask.
But I hope that someday, when he is old enough, someone will tell him I existed.
