“What is it?” he asked. “Heather, you’re scaring me.”
“I’m pregnant.”
He went pale. Then he took both my hands.
“Okay. Okay, babe.”
I stared at him. “Okay?”
“We’ll figure it out,” he said. His voice shook, but he didn’t let go. “Okay?”
Back in the present, Leo whispered, “So he knew.”
“Yes,” I said. “I told him, honey. I promise you.”
I kept reading.
Matilda had exploded. Andrew’s father already had a transfer lined up out of state, and she decided they would leave immediately. Andrew begged to see me—begged to stay long enough to explain.
She refused.
Then came the part that blurred my vision.
Andrew wrote letters.
But his mother intercepted them.
I never received a single one.
My chair scraped loudly as I pushed back.
“No.”
Leo stood quickly. “Mom…”
“No.” I gripped the counter. “No, that’s not possible.”
“There’s more,” he said gently.
I looked at him.
“She says some letters were hidden. Some were thrown away… and some…” He glanced at the phone. “Some were kept in an attic box.”
A box. Real proof.
“I spent eighteen years believing he ran,” I whispered.
Just then, my mother walked in carrying dinner rolls.
“I brought the good ones!” she called—then stopped. “Heather? What’s wrong?”
I turned toward her, still holding the phone.
“He wrote.”
She frowned. “Who?”
“Andrew.”
My father appeared behind her. “What’s going on?”
I handed Mom the phone. She read. Dad leaned over her shoulder.
Her face changed first.
“Ted…” she whispered. “He wrote to her.”
Dad swore under his breath.
Leo looked between us. “You didn’t know?”
“If I had known he wanted to be involved,” my father snapped, “I would’ve gone to that house myself.”
“Ted—”
“No, Lucy. That woman let our daughter believe she was abandoned.”
His voice broke—and that was what finally shattered me.
My father, almost crying in my kitchen, because someone had stolen years from us.
Leo wrapped his arms around me.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t know it would be like this.”
I cupped his face. “Don’t ever apologize for telling me the truth. I’m not mad at you.”
His eyes were wet.
“So… he didn’t leave?”
I shook my head, covering my mouth.
“No, baby. He was kept from us.”
Silence filled the room.
Then Leo said, “Gwen wants to meet us. She still has the box.”
That was all it took.
By six, we were on the road—Leo and I in my car, my parents following behind like this had become a full family mission.
Leo reread Gwen’s messages over and over. I kept both hands on the wheel, afraid I might fall apart otherwise.
Gwen lived in a small white house with drooping flowerpots on the porch. My parents stayed in the truck.
She opened the door before we knocked.
She had Andrew’s mouth.
My knees nearly gave out.
“Heather?” she asked.
I nodded.
She burst into tears. “I’m so sorry.”
Then she looked at Leo. “Oh my God… you look just like him.”
Leo glanced at me, unsure.
I stepped forward and hugged her.
Inside, she didn’t waste time.
“The box is upstairs.”
“You really have them?” Leo asked.
She nodded. “As many as I could find. I found them after our mother died last winter.”
We followed her to the attic—hot, dusty, filled with the smell of old paper.
She knelt by a storage bin and lifted the lid.
Letters.
Stacks of them. Birthday cards. Returned envelopes with my name written in Andrew’s handwriting.
My legs gave out. I sank to the floor.
Leo dropped beside me.
Gwen handed me the first envelope carefully.
“Start there.”
I opened it.
“Heather,
I know this looks bad. Please don’t believe I left you. I’m trying to come back. I promise.
— A.”
The air left my lungs.
I grabbed another.
“I don’t know if you hate me. My mother says you do. I don’t believe her, but I don’t know how else to reach you.”
“Oh no…” I whispered.
“He thought I hated him,” I said.
Gwen exhaled shakily. “She lied to both of you.”
I tore open another.
“If it’s a boy, I hope he laughs like you do when you’re really happy.”
My hand flew to my mouth.
Leo stared. “He wrote that?”
I nodded and handed him a card.
“Read it.”
He opened it.
“To my child,
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.”
No one spoke.
Then Leo asked, “You knew about this?”
“I didn’t know about the letters,” Gwen said. “I was away. But Andrew called me—he told me everything. He wanted to come back.”
“I just wanted him to stay…” I whispered.
“I know,” she said. “But our mother made sure that never happened.”
Leo looked down at the box.
“So… he didn’t walk away?”
“No,” Gwen said softly. “He didn’t.”
Then she added:
“Three years ago, he died. A truck ran a red light.”
Leo’s voice broke. “My dad’s really gone?”
“Yes.”
She handed me his old school photo—and the pregnancy test I had given him all those years ago.
“He kept everything,” she said. “He was going to try again.”
Later, outside, after telling my parents everything, my dad cleared his throat.
“Let’s get you home, kid.”
On the drive back, Leo fell asleep with one hand resting on the box.
At a red light, I looked over at him—and finally understood.
For eighteen years, I thought I was the girl Andrew ran from.
I wasn’t.
I was the girl he loved.
The girl he wrote to—again and again—
Until he couldn’t anymore.
Leave a Comment