Chapter 5: The Woman Who Never Stopped Looking
I read the message four more times before I put the phone down.
Sam was already standing.
He came around the table and read it again over my shoulder, his hand resting on my back.
"How did she get your number?" he said.
"I don't know."
"Did Patricia—"
"I don't know, Sam."
We stood there in the kitchen, the phone face-up on the table between the envelope and the remains of the evening — a wine glass with a ring at the bottom, a folded napkin, a small dish of olives nobody had finished.
"We don't have to respond tonight," Sam said.
"I know."
"We don't have to respond at all until we've thought about it."
"I know that too."
I picked up the phone.
I read the message one more time.
*I just want to know that he's okay.*
I typed: *He's okay.
He's more than okay.
Can we talk?*
I showed it to Sam before I sent it.
He read it.
He nodded once.
I pressed send.
The reply came in less than a minute.
*Yes.
Whenever you're ready.
I've waited nine years.
I can wait as long as you need.*
---
Her name was Angela Reyes and she was thirty-one years old and she lived forty minutes away.
We didn't know that yet.
We found it out the following week, when we met her for the first time at a coffee shop on a Tuesday morning while David was at school.
She was already there when we arrived.
She was sitting at a corner table with both hands wrapped around a mug, and she looked up when we walked in with the expression of someone who has been bracing for something for a very long time and is finally, terrifyingly, here.
She was slight, dark-haired, with David's exact nose.
I saw it the moment I sat down and I had to look away for a second.
"Thank you for coming," she said.
"Thank you for reaching out," Sam said.
We ordered coffee.
For a moment nobody spoke.
"I need to explain something first," Angela said.
"I need you to know that I didn't give him up because I didn't want him." Her voice was steady but her hands were tight around the mug.
"I was twenty-two.
I had no money, no family support — my mother had passed the year before, my father was not — he was not someone I could ask for help.
I had nothing to offer him.
And I thought—" She stopped.
"I thought the most loving thing I could do was make sure he had two parents who were ready.
Who had a home.
Who had each other."
"You made the right choice," I said.
"For him.
I need you to know that."
She looked at me.
Her eyes were filling.
"Is he happy?"
"He's so happy," I said.
"He's funny and stubborn and he's obsessed with dinosaurs — he was obsessed with dinosaurs, actually, he's moved on to space now.
He plays football on Saturdays.
He hates broccoli but he'll eat it if you put enough cheese on it." I stopped.
My voice had gone unsteady.
"He's the best thing that ever happened to us."
Angela pressed her lips together.
A tear ran down her face and she didn't wipe it away.
"I used to drive past schools sometimes," she said quietly.
"Not looking for him.
I knew I couldn't do that.
I just — I'd see boys his age on a playground and I'd wonder."
"I know," I said.
Though I hadn't known.
I hadn't known any of this until three days ago.
"I found you through Patricia," she said.
"She reached out to me last month.
She told me she'd contacted you.
She said she thought — she thought it was time.
That enough time had passed and that David was old enough that the question would come eventually." She looked down at her mug.
"She asked me if I wanted her to pass my information along.
I said yes.
And then I lost my nerve and contacted you myself before she could."
Sam smiled at that.
Just slightly.
"I don't want to disrupt anything," Angela said quickly.
"I'm not here to — I don't have any claim.
I know that.
I signed everything.
He's yours.
He has always been yours." She looked at both of us.
"I just wanted to see — I just wanted to know—"
"We'll tell him," I said.
She went very still.
"Not today," I said.
"Not this week.
We need to do it carefully, in the right way, at the right time.
But we will tell him.
And when he's ready — if he wants to meet you — we won't stand in the way."
Angela's breath came out in a long, shaking exhale.
She put her hand over her mouth for a moment.
Sam reached across the table and pushed the small dish of sugar packets toward her.
It was such a small, ordinary gesture.
She laughed — a wet, surprised sound — and took one even though her coffee was already sweet.
We stayed for two hours.
When we left, she stood at the door of the coffee shop and watched us walk to our car.
I turned once and she raised her hand.
I raised mine back.
In the car, Sam sat for a moment before starting the engine.
"That was—" he started.
"Yeah," I said.
"She loves him."
"She never stopped."
He started the car.
We drove home in the kind of quiet that doesn't need filling.
May you like
But when we turned onto our street, Sam slowed the car.
Claudia's car was parked in front of our house.
