“That has never been complicated for me.”
“It doesn’t have to become complicated now.”
He looked at Lily.
“Then why does it feel like it already has?”
Three weeks later, our kitchen table was covered in old photographs and papers.
Sadie had brought over a shoebox from her attic.
Inside were letters, photographs, and fragments of a life Ethan had never been allowed to see.
But before he went any further, he did what I had suggested.
He called Levi.
I stayed across the room so he could have privacy.
At first, Ethan barely spoke.
Then I heard him say:
“Mom told me about Sebastian years ago.”
Pause.
“I never wanted to ask because I thought it might hurt you.”
Another long silence.
Ethan’s shoulders slowly relaxed.
Then his eyes filled with tears.
“Are you sure, Dad?”
He listened.
When the call ended, he stayed still for a moment.
Then he looked at me.
“What did he say?”
Ethan smiled through tears.
“He said being my father has been the honor of his life.”
I swallowed hard.
“He said learning where I came from doesn’t erase anything he and I have.”
That was the permission Ethan had been waiting half his life to hear.
Months later, the old address eventually led us three states away.
We stood on the porch of a small house and knocked.
A woman in her sixties opened the door.
She looked at Ethan.
Then froze.
Her eyes moved across his face.
“Oh.”
She covered her mouth.
“You must be his.”
Her name was Marlene.
Sebastian’s sister.
That was how Ethan learned there would be no dramatic reunion.
Sebastian had died nine years earlier.
Ethan sat quietly when Marlene told him.
He had never known the man.
