I don’t know if you’ll ever see this. But if your mom tells you I loved her, believe that with your entire heart.”
Nobody spoke.
Then Leo looked at Gwen. “You knew about this?”
“I don’t know if you’ll ever see this.”
“I didn’t know about the letters then,” Gwen said. “I was away at college, and my mother had already decided I was a disgrace, so nobody told me anything unless they had to. Andrew called me after they moved, frantic. He told me Heather was pregnant, and that Mom wouldn’t let him go back.”
“I just wanted him to stay…” I whispered.
“I know,” Gwen said. “But I didn’t learn that until much later. By then, she’d already lied to both of you.”
“She’d already lied to both of you.”
Gwen wiped her face. “He didn’t walk away. Three years ago, he was driving home from a job when a truck ran a red light. He died before they got him to the hospital.”
“My dad’s really gone?”
“Yes.”
Gwen gave me Andrew’s school photo and the worn pregnancy test I’d given him eighteen years ago. “After our mother got sick, she gave the letters back. He kept every one. He was going to try again.”
Gwen wiped her face.
***
Outside, after I told my parents the truth, my dad cleared his throat. “Let’s get you home, kid.”
On the drive back, Leo fell asleep with a hand on the box. At a red light, I looked over at him and finally understood the truth of everything.
For eighteen years, I thought I was the girl Andrew ran from.
I wasn’t.
