- I’d been afraid to wash it thoroughly in case the whole thing came apart.
- I folded it between my hands and started crying.
- Daniel had fed him, taken him to school, and sat beside him when he was sick. How could I offer him this stained old bootie as proof of my love?
- Fabian returned then.
-
I’d been afraid to wash it.
- “What is that?” Fabian asked.
- “Something I made before you were born. I wasn’t very good.”
- I held out my hands with the bootie in my palms.
- He lifted the plastic bag and stared at the contents.
- “You kept it with you all this time?”
-
“What is that?”
- I nodded.
- A look crossed his face that I couldn’t decipher. He swallowed hard.
- Then someone knocked on my door.
- Fabian answered it.
- “I’m glad you could come,” he said. “You really need to hear this.”
-
Someone knocked on my door.
- He stepped aside.
- An older man entered the room.
- Decades had passed since I last saw him, but I recognized him instantly.
- Daniel.
- “You! You came back all those years ago, took our son, and left me behind?”
-
I recognized him instantly.
- Daniel looked at me, then at the bootie.
- His hand tightened on the doorframe.
-
“I came for both of you.”
- “Then why did you disappear in the first place? Not even a note. I thought you’d abandoned us.”
- “I told my parents about the pregnancy and our plan. They moved us out of state so you and the baby wouldn’t ‘ruin my life.’”
-
“I thought you’d abandoned us.”
- He glanced at Fabian.
- “I’d already saved most of the deposit. Once I had enough for the room, I moved out and came back.”
-
“You should have come to me.”
- “I tried, then your parents told me you called our son a mistake.” His expression hardened.
- “They lied to you, Daniel.”
-
“I moved out and came back.”
- “They said you wanted to forget all of it. Me too,” he added.
- “I never said that.”
- “They showed me the papers! Your signature. They said I could take responsibility for him or the adoption would go ahead.”
- “You knew what my parents were like,” I said. “Why would you believe them?”
-
“I never said that.”
- Fabian was watching his father.
- He’d spent his life hearing only one side. Now, the three of us could finally unravel the truth together.
- “You knew I wanted a home with you,” I said. “Did you think I could stop wanting both of you because my parents said so?”
-
We could unravel the truth together.
- I waited.
- Daniel had to answer me this time.
- “I… I thought you must have changed your mind.” His voice was low, uncertain. “Your signature was there. I was scared they’d send him away before I could stop it.”
- “So you took him. I understand taking him. But after that?”
-
Daniel had to answer me this time.
- He looked at the floor.
- “I should have come back.”
- “I was waiting for you. Even after they said he’d gone, I thought you might come and help me find him.”
- He covered his mouth.
- I had spent too many years imagining that conversation to make it easier for him now.
-
“I should have come back.”
- “I believed you’d rejected us,” he said. “I was hurt, and raising him was hard. I let that become my reason not to ask again.”
-
“They threatened to make me homeless. After helping me prepare his clothes. After promising I could bring him home.”
- The tears came too fast to stop them. “They tricked me into trusting them.”
-
“I believed you’d rejected us.”
- Daniel sat when his knees caught the chair.
- “I wanted him,” I said. “I searched for him. Whatever you thought of me, you should have let me tell you that.”
- Daniel looked at our son. “I hear you now.”
- The signature I’d hated for 31 years had convinced him I’d chosen this.
-
“I hear you now.”
- My parents had made the threat, then hidden it from everybody who mattered.
- I put the bootie in Fabian’s hand.
-
“You were never a mistake. Not for one minute.”
- “Neither was bringing you home,” Daniel said to him. “But I was wrong about your mother.”
- Fabian crouched beside my bed.
-
My parents had made the threat.
- When I reached for him, he put his arms around me.
- I held the son I’d last held as a newborn.
- “You don’t have to call me anything,” I said. “I don’t expect you to feel what I feel yet.”
- He squeezed my fingers.
- “Could we start with you staying in touch after you leave here?”
-
I reached for him.
- “Yes,” I said, before he finished asking. “We can do that.”
- Daniel waited until we drew apart. “Can you ever forgive me?”
-
“I don’t know yet. But you can stay. Tell me what he was like.”
- ***
- A few weeks later, they came for soup.
- Daniel brought photographs. Fabian showed me a gap-toothed boy holding his first fish.
-
“Can you ever forgive me?”
- “Dad claims he caught it. I did.”
- “I held the net,” Daniel said.
- I looked from the photograph to my son’s face.
- There would be other questions, and anger I hadn’t finished with. But they were here to answer.
- “What happened next?” I asked.
-
I looked from the photograph to my son’s face.
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