It wasn’t just that he was my husband, he was also the one who looked at me while I wept over my soup during dinner. He was the one who saw me examine the missing people posters, then turned around and said “Forget it, she’s made her decision.” It was him who communicated with them. He was threatening the father of his grandchild to stroke his ego. His daughter being dead was better than her not being controlled by him.
I did not hesitate, I did not think, just I called him. He had moved out three years ago, about the same time that he allegedly told Jennifer to stay away from us. He was living his “new life” as he liked to call it – he had a new wife, a new house that didn’t hold memories of his abandoned daughter.
“Come here,” I said when he answered. I could hardly recognize my own voice, but it sounded cold.
“It is six o’clock in the morning and what is going on?” He groaned.
“This morning or else I’ll report everything in Andy’s letter to the police.”
There was no answer.
He arrived thirty minutes late, disheveled yet still managing to project that “sane” image he cherished so deeply. He entered the kitchen, looked at the infant, and simply turned pale. Then, he looked at the coat. He looked at the letter left on the table.
“I did it for our sake,” he began, his voice quavering. “She was a disaster. The boyfriend was a bum. I thought that if I made them both leave, she would know how tough life could be, and she would come back to me for good. I did not imagine that… that…”
“You didn’t think she’d die?” I demanded, feeling a rage that blurred my vision. “Did you ever consider that I would spend five long years mourning the loss of my child because you allowed her to believe I despised her so much that I never answered the phone? Did you know that she carried a child?”
He reached out to place a hand on my shoulder, but the thought of him touching me made me want to kill him. I asked him to leave. I told him that if he ever showed his face again, I’d make sure he would spend the rest of his life dragging in court for what he’d done.
After he left, the house seemed empty. Hope woke up crying. I hadn’t changed a baby’s diaper in decades, but it was as if I had only done that the previous night. I took care of her and just stared at her as she fussed. She had Jennifer’s strong jawline.
The following morning, I spotted a car I didn’t recognize. A beaten-up sedan with a broken windshield. I knew who it was. I stepped out onto the porch, and after several moments, the front door opened and a young man emerged.
It was Andy.
He did not fit the description of the “drifter” that Paul had given me. On the contrary, he appeared as though the entire world was pressing down upon him. He was scrawny and wore worn-out clothes; he seemed as though he had not slept since Hope’s birth. He did not approach the door but remained standing near his car, staring at me with an expression of sheer, utter terror.
