I sank onto the steps. I held the envelope in my hands. I couldn’t breathe.
“Three years,” I whispered. “I lost three years.”
Adrian knelt in front of me. He didn’t touch me. He just knelt there, his hands on his knees, his eyes never leaving mine.
“I searched for you every day,” he said. “I hired private investigators. I followed leads across the country. I never stopped. I never will.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you. Because I never stopped loving you. Because when I saw those children—my children—I realized I had missed everything. And I can’t get that time back. But I can spend the rest of my life trying.”
I looked at him. At the man I had loved. At the man I had blamed. At the man who had been carrying the truth for three years, waiting for the chance to give it back to me.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you,” I said.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me. I’m asking you to give me a chance. A chance to know my children. A chance to be part of their lives. A chance to prove that I’m not the man you think I am.”
I looked down at the envelope. I thought about Bethany. My sister. The one who had always been trouble. The one who had always needed saving. The one who had destroyed everything and then died before she could fix it.
“I need time,” I said.
He nodded. “I’ll wait.”
“How long?”
“As long as it takes.”
I stood up. I put the envelope in my pocket. I looked at him one last time.
“Don’t come to the apartment. Don’t come to the daycare. Don’t follow me. If you do, I’ll disappear again. And this time, I won’t leave a trail.”
He nodded. “I understand.”
“Then wait.”
He didn’t say anything else. He just turned and walked to his car. He got in. He drove away.
I watched him go. Then I walked back upstairs.
I opened the envelope.
The letter was three pages long. Bethany’s handwriting was shaky, uneven, as if she had been crying while she wrote. She apologized. For everything. For the lies. For the manipulation. For the years of jealousy. She said she had been in love with Adrian since she was fifteen. She said she knew he would never love her back. She said she had tried to destroy us because if she couldn’t have him, she didn’t want anyone to.
She told me he was innocent.
She told me he had never touched her.
She told me he had pushed her away, told her to leave, told her to get help.
She told me the only thing he had done wrong was protect her secret.
I finished the letter. I folded it. I put it back in the envelope. I sat in the dark and cried for a long time.
Two weeks later, I told Adrian he could see the children.
He came to the apartment on a Saturday morning. The twins were playing in the living room. Lily was building a tower. Theo was watching her.
Adrian walked in and froze. He looked at them like they were the most precious things in the world. Lily looked up at him.
