That answer, at least, was truthful.
“Because it made leaving easier?”
“Yes.”
“What happened at the hospital?”
Nathan stared toward the window.
“I came because I wanted to see him.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I saw you first.”
“Carrying Lucas?”
He nodded.
“You were standing near the elevators.”
I remembered that exact moment.
Lucas had been asleep against my chest.
“I could see part of his face.”
Nathan’s voice shook.
“And suddenly he wasn’t an idea anymore.”
He paused.
“He was my son.”
I said nothing.
“I panicked.”
“So you left.”
“Yes.”
“Did Teagan know you came?”
“Yes.”
That surprised me.
“How?”
“I called her from the parking lot.”
“What did she say?”
Nathan looked down.
“She told me I could come back upstairs.”
“And?”
“I told her I couldn’t.”
I closed my eyes.
“What did she say then?”
“She said, ‘Then don’t come back until you can stay.’”
That sounded exactly like my daughter.
“So you waited ten years.”
“At first, I thought I’d come back in a week.”
Nathan gave a bitter laugh.
“Then a month.”
He looked at me.
“Then Lucas turned one.”
“Then two.”
He nodded.
“Every year made it harder.”
“Because?”
“Because every year added another question I couldn’t answer.”
Why weren’t you there?
Why didn’t you call?
Why didn’t you send a birthday card?
Why didn’t you come when Mom died?
Nathan didn’t need to say them.
I could hear them myself.
“I followed from a distance,” he admitted.
My expression hardened.
“What does that mean?”
“I found your social media. School pictures sometimes. Community baseball.”
“You watched him?”
“Online. Never in person.”
I wasn’t sure whether that made me feel better or worse.
“He likes baseball,” Nathan said quietly.
“I know what my grandson likes.”
He nodded immediately.
“Sorry.”
For the first time, I noticed something important.
Nathan wasn’t asking me to make him Lucas’s father.
He wasn’t demanding access.
He wasn’t telling me that biology entitled him to anything.
