Instead, he said, “When Caleb disappeared after you told him you were pregnant, I thought it proved I had been right all along.”
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“Right about what?”
“That he was his father’s son.”
I looked down at Nora.
“But if Caleb was just cruel, why stay with me for almost two years?”
Grandpa had no answer.
Neither did I.
But I knew where I might find one.
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That night, after Nora finally fell asleep, I pulled my mother’s old cedar box from the back of my closet.
I had avoided opening it for years.
Inside were photographs, scarves, letters, and small pieces of a life that had ended too soon.
I searched until I found a faded photograph.
There I was at four years old, sitting on a red bicycle.
Beside me stood a dark-haired boy.
He had one bright eye and one dark one.
Caleb.
My breath caught.
Beneath the photograph was a bundle of letters.
The first was written in the careful handwriting of a child.
“Dear Sarah, where did the little girl go? Did she take her bicycle? Please write back. Caleb.”
I read it twice.
Then another.
Years later.
Teenage handwriting.
“I saved this from my allowance. Please use it for her. Please tell me she is okay.”
Folded bills were still tucked inside.
Another letter came from an older Caleb.
“Grandfather says he’s leaving something for me when I’m old enough. Dad says I’ll never touch any of it without him. Maybe someday I’ll finally be able to help you myself.”
My hands began shaking.
Caleb had remembered me.
All those years.
Then I turned over the final letter.
On the back, in my mother’s handwriting, were five words.
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“He isn’t like his father.”
I sat there staring at them.
My mother had believed in Caleb.
And suddenly I remembered something else.
Months before I became pregnant, Caleb and I had been lying on his couch when he casually asked whether I’d owned a red bicycle as a child.
“Yes,” I said. “Why?”
He smiled at the ceiling.
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“No reason.”
There had been a reason.
He had known who I was from the beginning.
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At sunrise, I strapped Nora into the car and drove to the return address printed on the oldest letter.
The house was smaller than I remembered.
