Leo stared at the box in his lap. “So that’s it?” he asked. “He wanted us, and all this time we thought he walked away?”
“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.
