“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I haven’t seen him in seven months.”
The nurse placed the baby into Joanna’s arms. Instinct overpowered everything. She pulled him close, breathing in his warm newborn scent. Her son quieted almost at once.
“The night he left you,” Robert said, “he came to me.”
Joanna looked up slowly.
“He was terrified. I had never seen him like that. He said he had made a mistake, that he needed to leave, that people were looking for him. I thought he owed money. I thought he had gotten himself into trouble. He had always been impulsive.”
“Did he tell you about me?”
“No. He didn’t mention you. He didn’t mention a baby.” Robert’s face tightened with regret. “If he had—”
Joanna waited.
“I told him to stop running. He became angry and said I had never understood anything about blood.” Robert looked again at the birthmark. “Then he left. Three days later, his car was found abandoned near Blackwater Bridge. No crash. No signs of him. Just the car, his phone, and his wallet.”
Joanna’s breath caught.
“No body?”
“No body. The police believed he staged it and ran. I wanted to believe he was alive.”
For seven months, Joanna had imagined Logan somewhere free, careless, laughing too easily, telling someone new that his past was complicated. That image had hurt, but it had kept her standing. Anger was easier than grief. Now there was a bridge, an abandoned car, and a father who had vanished from more than one life.
Robert pulled a chair closer and sat carefully.
“My wife and I had two sons,” he said. “Logan, and another boy. His name was Elias.”
The name meant nothing to her.
“Elias had a birthmark under his left collarbone, exactly like your son’s. When Elias was five, he disappeared.”
The nurse crossed herself without thinking.
Robert kept going, as though stopping would break him.
“It happened at the county fair. One moment he was beside my wife. The next, he was gone. We searched for months. Police, volunteers, dogs in the woods. Nothing. No note. No body. No reliable witness.”
His hands pressed hard against his knees.
“My wife kept his room the same for ten years. His shoes by the bed. His drawings on the wall. She died believing he was still alive.” His voice almost failed. “That birthmark appears in my family sometimes. When it appears, it looks almost identical.”
Joanna looked down at the mark on her son’s skin.
“So this baby is your grandson,” she said.
The word trembled between them.
“What did Logan tell you about his family?” Robert asked.
She gave a humorless laugh.
“Almost nothing. He said his mother died. He said you were strict. He said he hated hospitals.” She paused. “He said there were things nobody in his family talked about. He had nightmares. Once, he said a name in his sleep.”
Robert barely breathed.
“What name?”
“Elias.”
The nurse made a soft sound.
Robert stood so quickly the chair scraped the floor. Joanna flinched.
“I’m sorry,” he said, though his eyes had turned distant and afraid. “Three months before Logan disappeared, he came to my house drunk. He went into Elias’s old room. I had kept it locked after my wife died. I couldn’t clear it out. Logan broke the lock.”
Joanna waited.
