“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want you to find out like that. I wanted to wait until you were stronger.”
“Is it true?” I asked.
He nodded.
“My name is Anders Treadwell,” he said. “I was born on November 10, 1995, at Bellmont Regional. I turn thirty-one in fourteen days.”
“I wasn’t going to find you,” he said. “Not like this. I just came to work.”
“Then why,” I said, “did you ask me about it?”
He reached into his back pocket and took out a wallet worn soft as cloth.
From behind his driver’s license, he drew out a small square of paper, folded so many times that the creases had gone white.
“Because of this,” he said.
He unfolded it on my blanket with great care.
It was a photocopy.
Ohio Mutual Consent Registry.
Birth Parent Statement.
In the center, in dark capital letters:
MOTHER DECLINES CONTACT.
Beneath it, a signature.
