Richard answered for me.
“Because leaving her was the biggest mistake I ever made.”
Jordan looked stunned.
“Dad…”
Richard rubbed both hands across his face.
“I owe you an explanation.” He looked at me. “If you’ll let me give it.”
I studied him for a long moment.
Twenty-two years of unanswered questions stood between us. Part of me wanted to protect the life I’d built by leaving the past exactly where it belonged.
Another part had waited half my lifetime to hear one simple word.
Why.
I nodded.
“You have one chance.”
Richard exhaled slowly.
“I won’t waste it.”
The mechanic interrupted gently.
“Your truck will be towed in about ten minutes.”
Richard nodded without taking his eyes off me.
“Would it be alright…” He hesitated. “…if we talked somewhere else?”
Stormy looked at me carefully.
For the first time all evening, she wasn’t acting like my daughter. She was watching me the way adults watch each other when they know a decision matters.
“You don’t have to,” she said quietly.
I looked at Richard.
Then at Jordan standing beside her.
The two of them had met by chance on a subway platform. They deserved the truth just as much as we did.
I took a slow breath.
“Come back to the house.”
Richard blinked.
“You sure?”
“No.”
I gave the smallest smile.
“But I think we’ve all waited long enough.”
Richard rode home in silence.
Jordan sat in the front passenger seat while Stormy climbed into the back with me. Every now and then, I caught her studying my face in the reflection of the window.
She wasn’t looking at me with curiosity anymore.
She was trying to understand the version of her mother that had existed long before she was born.
Back at the house, I brewed coffee simply because I needed something to do with my hands.
