“Mom,
I know you think I won’t tell you because I don’t trust you.
That isn’t why.
He knows about the baby.”
A worn baseball glove was tucked under his arm.
I stopped reading.
My hands started shaking.
“He wanted to stay. But wanting something and being ready for it aren’t the same thing.
His family keeps telling him this will ruin everything he planned. I told him not to come back because he’s scared of disappointing them. If he comes back, I need it to be because he chooses us himself.”
Then came the line that broke something open in me.
I stopped reading.
“You kept asking me who he was, but you never asked why I was scared.”
I lowered the page.
One memory came back.
Teagan had walked into the kitchen late one night.
“Mom, can I ask you something?”
I hadn’t looked up from my spot at the table.
“Mom, can I ask you something?”
“If this is about avoiding the father question again, I can’t do this tonight, Tee,” I said.
She stood there for a few seconds, then said, “Never mind.”
For ten years, I’d remembered that as Teagan shutting me out.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
I grabbed my phone and called Trudy.
I’d remembered that as Teagan shutting me out.
She answered on the fourth ring.
“You had this for ten years.”
“I know.”
“Don’t say that to me like it’s perfectly fine.”
She went quiet.
“Meet me,” I said.
“You had this for ten years.”
***
Trudy was waiting in a booth near the back of a small diner.
I put the photograph between us.
“You took care of Teagan?”
“For part of that day.”
“Then why did she give you the letter?”
