She cried.
Then pride returned.
People love to say that families are separated by one unforgivable event.
Usually it is a hundred smaller choices afterward.
No second letter.
No call.
No drive.
No apology.
Then time makes the silence feel permanent.
I asked:
“What happened to your mother?”
Maeve looked down.
“She had me at twenty-seven.”
The timeline fit.
One year after she left us.
“My father disappeared before I was born.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She worked.”
“Doing what?”
“Bookkeeping. Retail. Whatever paid.”
“And she never contacted us?”
“She said she tried once.”
My chest tightened.
“When?”
“When I was five.”
That would have been thirty-three years earlier.
Maeve continued.
“She wrote Lorna.”
“I never saw it.”
“She got a reply.”
I frowned.
“What reply?”
Maeve reached into her purse.
From a small inner pocket, she removed a folded sheet.
Old.
Soft at the creases.
She put it on the table.
My hands shook before I touched it.
