***
Cold bleachers, my hands shaking, and Andrew staring at me like he knew something was wrong.
“What is it?” he’d asked. “Heather, you’re scaring me.”
“I’m pregnant.”
He went white. Then he took both my hands. “Okay. Okay, babe.”
I remember staring at him. “Okay?”
“We’ll figure it out,” he said. His voice was shaking, but he didn’t let go of me. “Okay?”
“Heather, you’re scaring me.”
***
Back in my kitchen, Leo whispered, “So he knew.”
“Yes, I told him, honey. I promise you.”
I kept reading.
Matilda had exploded. Their father already had a transfer lined up out of state, and she decided they were leaving early. Andrew begged to come see me first. He begged to stay long enough to explain. She refused.
Then Gwen wrote the part that made my vision blur.
Andrew wrote letters, but his mother intercepted them.
Matilda had exploded.
I didn’t get one.
I pushed back so hard my chair scraped.
“No.”
Leo stood up. “Mom…”
“No.” I grabbed the edge of the counter. “No, there’s no way.”
“There’s more,” he said gently.
I looked at him.
He swallowed. “She says some letters were hidden. Some were thrown out, and some…” He glanced at the phone. “Some were kept in an attic box.”
“No, there’s no way.”
A box: real proof. I needed to see it.
I stared at him, then at the screen. “I spent eighteen years thinking he ran.”
Just then, my mother came through the back door carrying dinner rolls.
“I brought the good ones,” she called. Then she stopped. “Heather? What happened?”
I turned to her, still holding Leo’s phone.
“He wrote.”
She frowned. “Who?”
“Andrew.”
My father appeared behind her. “What’s going on?”
“Heather? What happened?”
I handed Mom the phone. She read the message thread while Dad read over her shoulder.
Mom’s face changed first. “Ted,” she whispered. “He wrote to her.”
Dad swore under his breath.
Leo looked between us. “You didn’t know?”
