Chapter 5: The Girl Who Was Sorry
I didn't tell Michael about the message that night.
I lay in the dark beside him and listened to his breathing slow and eventually steady into sleep.
I didn't understand how he could sleep.
I lay there for three hours looking at the ceiling, and somewhere around two in the morning I got up quietly, took my phone to the kitchen, and sat down at the table in the dark.
I read Clara's message again.
*Mrs.
Callahan?
My name is Clara.
I think my father is your husband.
I'm sorry to contact you this way.
I didn't know who else to reach.*
She was sorry.
A nineteen-year-old girl who had done nothing wrong was apologizing to me for existing.
I typed back before I could stop myself.
*Clara.
This is Sarah.
I only just found out about you tonight.
You have nothing to apologize for.
Are you all right?*
The reply came faster than I expected.
She was awake too.
*I wasn't sure you'd answer.
I wasn't sure if you knew.*
*I didn't,* I wrote.
*Not until a few hours ago.*
A pause.
Then: *I'm sorry.
That must have been a shock.*
I sat with that for a moment.
This girl — this young woman — had just learned that her father had a wife who didn't know she existed, and her first instinct was to ask how I was doing.
*Can I ask you something?* I typed.
*Of course.*
*When you reached out to him two years ago — when he said it wasn't a good time — how did that feel?*
The pause was longer this time.
Long enough that I wondered if I'd asked too much.
Then:
*Like I'd been told I wasn't a good time.
Like I should have known better than to ask.*
I pressed my hand flat against the kitchen table and held it there.
*You should never have been made to feel that way,* I wrote.
*My mum always said he might have reasons.
That I shouldn't judge too quickly.
She said sometimes people are just scared.*
*Is your mum — Rachel?*
*Yes.
How did you know?*
*There was a photograph.
She wrote on the back.*
Another pause.
*She kept a copy of that photo too.
She said she sent it to him when I was born so he'd know I was real.
She never heard back.*
I looked toward the hallway.
The bedroom door was still closed.
*Clara,* I typed slowly, *I want to be honest with you.
I don't know what happens next.
I don't know what I'm going to do or what your father is going to do.
But I want you to know that none of this is your fault.
Not one piece of it.*
*Thank you,* she wrote.
And then, after a moment: *Can I ask you something now?*
*Yes.*
*Did he ever — was he good to you?
I always wondered what kind of person he was.
Whether I was missing something worth missing.*
I sat in the dark kitchen for a long time before I answered.
*I thought he was,* I typed finally.
*I'm still figuring out what's true.*
She sent back a single word: *Same.*
I set the phone down.
Outside, the first faint grey of early morning was beginning to show at the edge of the window.
I had been awake all night and I wasn't tired.
I was something else entirely — something that didn't have an easy name.
Not anger, exactly.
Not grief.
Something that felt like standing at the edge of a field after a fire, looking at all the ground that was still there, unchanged, underneath the ash.
I picked up the phone one more time.
*Clara.
Would you be willing to meet?*
The reply came in seconds.
*Yes.
I've been hoping you'd ask.*
I heard a floorboard creak in the hallway.
May you like
Michael was awake.
I turned the phone over before he reached the kitchen doorway.
