He only gripped the photograph tighter, as if he feared I was going to snatch it from him.
—”Answer me,” I said, firmer now. “Where did you get that?”
His breath hitched. —”I’ve had it… all this time.”
I felt my stomach drop. —”All this time? What does that mean?”
He looked at me. And in his eyes… there was no sadness anymore. There was fear.
—”It means…” he swallowed hard, “that I never stopped looking for you.”
The air grew heavy. —”I don’t understand you,” I murmured.
He ran his hand over his face, as if trying to wake up from a nightmare. —”You…” he said, “you disappeared.”
I shook my head immediately. —”I didn’t disappear. I got married.”
Silence. —”To Frank.”
He closed his eyes. As if that name were a blow. —”I know,” he whispered.
That made me take a step back. —”What do you mean you know?”
Pause. Long. Painful.
—”Because I went looking for you.”
My heart started beating hard. —”When?” —”When I found out…” his voice broke, “when I found out you were pregnant.”
The photo. My belly. My dress. It all came rushing back.
—”That was forty years ago…” —”Yes,” he answered. “And you never showed up again.”
I shook my head, confused. —”I never went anywhere.”
He looked up. Direct. —”Yes, you did.”
Silence. —”You left me.”
The words pierced right through me. —”Who are you?” I asked, my voice trembling. “What are you talking about?”
His hands stopped shaking. But his gaze… didn’t. —”I’m Arthur.”
Pause. —”But not the one you met last night.”
I felt a chill run down my spine. —”Then…” I took a deep breath. —”Tell me the truth.”
He nodded slowly. —”My full name is Arthur Mitchell.”
That last name. That damn last name. I felt my legs give out.
—”No…” —”Yes.” —”No…” I repeated, “that can’t be…” —”I am the man you were going to marry.”
The world stopped. Literally. All of it.
—”That… that’s impossible…” I leaned against the wall. —”You… you left…”
His laugh was bitter. —”No.”
Pause. —”I was told that you had left.”
Silence. Dense. Unreal.
—”Who told you that?” —”Your father.”
The blow was blunt. —”My father?” —”Yes.”
His voice was firm now. —”He told me you didn’t want to see me anymore. That the baby wasn’t mine. That you had decided to marry someone else.”
I felt my chest split open. —”No…” I whispered, “that’s not true…”
—”I believed him,” he continued. “I was twenty-something… I didn’t know what to do.” He looked down. —”And you… you never came looking for me.”
—”Because they told me you had left!” I yelled. “That you didn’t want to take responsibility. That you were leaving me alone with a child.”
Silence. Heavy. Perfect. The truth… falling into pieces between the two of us.
We just stared at each other. Like two strangers. Who weren’t strangers at all. Like two lives… told the wrong way.
—”So…” I said slowly, “neither of us left.” —”No,” he answered.
Pause. —”They separated us.”
The words hung in the air. Like a life sentence. I looked at the photo. I took it from his hands. —”And this?”
—”I kept it.” —”Why?”
He gave a sad smile. —”Because you were the only thing I had left of what I didn’t understand.”
My hands were shaking. —”I… I had that daughter.”
He looked up sharply. —”Daughter?” I nodded. —”Yes.”
Pause. —”And I raised her alone.”
Silence. —”Thinking you had abandoned us.”
His eyes filled with tears again. —”Where is she?”
I took a deep breath. —”Alive.”
Pause. —”But far away.”
He ran his hand through his hair. As if the weight of it all hit him at once. —”Forty years…” he murmured, “forty years lost…”
—”Not lost,” I said. “Lived… but misunderstood.”
We sat down. Both of us. On the edge of that cheap bed. Where everything had started off wrong… and ended worse. Or better. I didn’t know.
—”And last night…?” I asked.
He smiled sadly. —”Last night I didn’t know who you were.”
Pause. —”But something… made me stay.”
I looked at him. —”Me too.”
Silence. Soft. Different.
—”You know what the worst part is?” he said. —”What?” —”That we had to wait until we were old… to understand what they did to us.”
I felt a knot in my throat. —”And to find each other again…” I added.
We sat in silence. But it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence anymore. It was a full one. Full of history. Of what was. Of what could have been.
—”And now?” he asked.
I didn’t answer immediately. I looked at my hands. The photo. The bed. The window. My life.
—”Now…” I finally said, “we decide.” I looked at him. Truly looked at him. —”No fathers. No lies. No forty years of silence.”
He nodded. —”Now we do.”
And for the first time in a long time… I didn’t feel guilt. Or shame. Or fear.
Only something I thought no longer existed at my age: A second chance. Not to get the past back. You can’t do that. But… to not lose whatever we still have left.
