Changed my number.
Changed jobs.
And the address in the hospital records was outdated.
Anna spent years trying to find me.
Then, three months earlier, she found Michael.
I turned toward him.
“You knew.”
He nodded.
“Three months ago.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I wanted to.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
His eyes filled with tears.
“Because Anna asked me not to.”
That answer made me even angrier.
“She was my daughter.”
“I know.”
“You had no right.”
“I know.”
“Why would she ask you to hide this from me?”
Michael looked at Eleanor.
She answered.
“Because she was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“No.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“Of losing you.”
I didn’t understand.
Anna had apparently spent years believing that her biological parents had abandoned her.
When she found out the truth, she was furious.
She wanted answers.
But she also wanted to know whether I had wanted her.
Michael had told her the truth.
He’d told her that I had never willingly given her away.
That I’d believed she had died.
That I’d mourned her for 22 years.
Anna eventually agreed to meet me.
But then she found out she was pregnant.
And she became afraid.
She didn’t know how to walk into my life after all those years.
So she asked Michael to wait.
Then, tonight, she went into labor.
Something went wrong.
