“There’s always a choice,” he replied.
“My father said I couldn’t come home with you. I’d just given birth. Daniel was gone, and I would’ve ended up on the street with a newborn.”
Fabian nodded thoughtfully.
Maybe I could still prove to him that I was telling the truth.
“I had nowhere to go.”
“I searched for you,” I said. “I thought they’d changed your name. I didn’t know your father had you.”
Fabian stood abruptly.
“None of this makes sense. I need to step outside, make a call…”
“Wait! Pass me my purse, please?”
He fetched it from the cupboard, then stepped into the hall, already dialing on his phone.
“None of this makes sense.”
I rummaged through my things.
The paperwork I’d accumulated over years of searching was at home, useless to me now, but I had one thing I could show him.
I found the plastic bag containing the bootie.
It looked terrible… the yarn was faded and fraying, red nail polish covered the heel, and it had collected a few other stains over the years.
It looked terrible
I’d been afraid to wash it thoroughly in case the whole thing came apart.
I folded it between my hands and started crying.
Daniel had fed him, taken him to school, and sat beside him when he was sick. How could I offer him this stained old bootie as proof of my love?
Fabian returned then.
I’d been afraid to wash it.
“What is that?” Fabian asked.
“Something I made before you were born. I wasn’t very good.”
I held out my hands with the bootie in my palms.
He lifted the plastic bag and stared at the contents.
“You kept it with you all this time?”
“What is that?”
I nodded.
A look crossed his face that I couldn’t decipher. He swallowed hard.
Then someone knocked on my door.
Fabian answered it.
“I’m glad you could come,” he said. “You really need to hear this.”
Someone knocked on my door.
He stepped aside.
An older man entered the room.
Decades had passed since I last saw him, but I recognized him instantly.
Daniel.
“You! You came back all those years ago, took our son, and left me behind?”
I recognized him instantly.
Daniel looked at me, then at the bootie.
His hand tightened on the doorframe.
“I came for both of you.”
“Then why did you disappear in the first place? Not even a note. I thought you’d abandoned us.”
“I told my parents about the pregnancy and our plan. They moved us out of state so you and the baby wouldn’t ‘ruin my life.'”
“I thought you’d abandoned us.”
He glanced at Fabian.
“I’d already saved most of the deposit. Once I had enough for the room, I moved out and came back.”
“You should have come to me.”
“I tried, then your parents told me you called our son a mistake.” His expression hardened.
“They lied to you, Daniel.”
“I moved out and came back.”
“They said you wanted to forget all of it. Me too,” he added.
“I never said that.”
“They showed me the papers! Your signature. They said I could take responsibility for him or the adoption would go ahead.”
“You knew what my parents were like,” I said. “Why would you believe them?”
“I never said that.”
Fabian was watching his father.
