Chapter 9: Abandoned

My father appeared behind her.

“What’s going on?”

I handed Mom the phone.

She read the message thread while Dad leaned over her shoulder.

Mom’s face changed first.

“Ted,” she whispered. “He wrote to her.”

My father swore under his breath.

Leo looked between them.

“You didn’t know?”

“If I had known that boy wanted to be involved,” Dad snapped, voice shaking, “I would have gone to that house myself.”

“Ted,” my mother said softly.

“No, Lucy,” he said. “That woman let our daughter think she had been abandoned.”

His voice cracked on the word abandoned.

And that was what finally broke me.

Not the letters.

Not the lies.

My father nearly crying in my kitchen because someone had stolen years from his daughter and grandson.

Leo crossed the room and wrapped his arms around me. Continue Reading ⬇️