That evening, I stopped across from the bakery and stared at its dark windows.
“Don’t do it,” I muttered.
Then I looked at the faded awning.
“Fine. One conversation.”
Mom had given up enough.
I could survive one uncomfortable conversation.
I stopped across from the bakery.
***
The next afternoon, I knocked on Thomas’s door.
An elderly man opened it and stared at me.
“Rachel.”
“Don’t say my name like you know me.”
His eyes dropped. “You’re right.”
“Claire said you wanted to see me.”
I could survive one conversation.
“I did.”
“Well, here I am. Explain forty years.”
He invited me inside.
I stayed standing.
“Your mother told you I abandoned her.”
You wanted to see me.
“She told me you chose your family.”
“I did. My wife was very ill then,” he continued. “I was terrified that leaving would destroy her.”
“So you destroyed my mother instead?”
“I loved your mother. But when she told me she was pregnant, I panicked.”
“And disappeared.”
Explain forty years.
“No.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“I didn’t disappear.”
“You’re going to tell me my mother lied?”
“No. I’m telling you there was more to it.”
I panicked.
He opened a drawer and removed a folder. “I offered financial support. I wanted to buy you a home. I asked to see you.”
“And?”
