“After I gave birth, I brought my baby to meet the grandpa who raised me — but the moment he saw her face, he burst into tears and said, “This is impossible. You have no idea what you’ve done.” My grandpa was the only father I ever had after my parents died in a car crash. So when I got pregnant at 27 and the man I loved disappeared the same night I told him, Grandpa was the one who held me together. He had never met Caleb. I had kept putting off introducing them, telling …

Something shifted inside my memory.

“A big house,” I whispered. “There was a garden. There was a red bicycle.”

“Yes.”

“And a boy. There was a boy who…”

I swallowed.

“He used to run with me.”

Grandpa nodded.

“That was Caleb.”

Suddenly, pieces of my relationship that had once seemed strange no longer felt accidental.

I covered my mouth.

Nora squirmed against Grandpa’s shoulder.

Almost two years.

Two years since the bookstore reading where Caleb had turned toward me in the aisle and spoken my name as though he already knew it.

Two years of coffee, long drives, quiet evenings in his apartment.

None of it had been chance.

Grandpa continued.

“After Caleb’s mother died, William started pursuing your mother. Sarah refused him, so he fired her and made sure no decent family in the county would hire her again.”

“I remember yelling,” I whispered.

A memory flashed.