He gave a nervous little laugh.
“Probably not anymore.”
That answer annoyed me more than anything.
“What does that mean?”
He didn’t answer right away.
Instead, he reached under the counter, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and held it out — not to me, but to Ellie.
“Make sure your mom reads this,” he said quietly. “All of it. Tonight.”
Then he put the truck in gear and drove off before I could say another word.
That night, after Ellie was asleep, I sat at the kitchen table and unfolded the note.
And by the third line, my hands were shaking.
Because the note was signed “Dad.”
And my father had been dead for twenty-five years.
At least, that’s what my mother told me when I was seven.
PART 2
I read the note four times before I could breathe normally.
“Sarah,
You won’t remember my face, and I understand that. You were six the last time you saw it. But I remember yours every single day.
I’m not going to dump everything on this piece of paper. You deserve better than that, and so does the little girl who orders strawberry shortcake exactly the way you used to, standing exactly the way you used to, so much like you that the first time I saw her I had to pull over around the corner and sit for a while.
I know you were told I died.
I didn’t.
I’m not asking for anything. I don’t have any right to. I just couldn’t drive past my own granddaughter three nights a week and say nothing. I’m a coward, but I’m not that much of a coward.
If you never want to see me, I’ll change my route and you’ll never hear from me again. I’ll understand. You get to decide everything.
But if you want the truth — the real one, not the one you were given — I’ll be parked at the entrance to Riverside Park this Saturday at noon. I’ll wait until three. If you don’t come, I’ll know your answer, and I’ll respect it forever.
Either way, thank you for letting me hand your daughter an ice cream. Those were the best two weeks I’ve had in twenty-five years.
— Dad (Walter)”
I sat in my kitchen and I did something I hadn’t done since I was a girl.
I called my mother.
And I asked her the question I’d never once thought to ask, because why would you question a dead father.
