“What?”
“He got sick very suddenly.”
Rachel stared at me.
“No, he didn’t.”
“No.”
“He died before your son was born.”
Her lips parted.
“No, he didn’t.”
“I buried him.”
The silence between us became unbearable.
Rachel shook her head once.
Her lips parted.
Then again.
“All these years…”
She covered her mouth.
“I thought he chose not to come back.”
“He didn’t.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I hated him.”
“He didn’t.”
I reached across the table.
“And I spent twenty-six years believing I knew everything important about my own son.”
Rachel looked at my hand before slowly taking it.
After a while, she whispered, “Our son knows about him.”
My heart lurched.
“What did you tell him?”
She closed her eyes.
“That his father left.”
She closed her eyes.
“And now I have to tell him I was wrong.”
I squeezed her hand.
“We both were.”
She reached for her phone.
