“You don’t need to apologize.”
“I thought you knew.”
“I believe you.”
Robert said, “Can we please sit down?”
“No,” I said.
Ariella looked close to tears.
“I didn’t mean to cause problems.”
“You didn’t.”
“I just wanted family.”
That silenced all of us.
She looked at Robert.
“My dad died. Then my grandmother died. I found out there was another person out there who was connected to me, and I wanted to know him.”
Her voice cracked.
“I wasn’t trying to take him from anyone.”
I walked toward her.
“You didn’t.”
She wiped her eyes.
“I thought maybe you didn’t want to meet me.”
That hurt in an entirely different way.
Robert had allowed her to believe my absence was a choice.
I said, “I didn’t know you existed.”
She nodded slowly, then looked at him.
“Why would you do that?”
Robert sat on the edge of the bed.
“I was afraid that if I told Irene, everything would change.”
“It changed anyway.”
For a while, nobody spoke.
Then Ariella sat in the chair by the window. I sat across from her while Robert remained on the bed.
She told me about Mike.
He had been a mechanic and had raised Ariella mostly on his own.
She showed me a photograph.
The resemblance to Robert wasn’t dramatic, but it was there.
Something around the eyes.
The shape of his chin.
I understood Robert’s pain more clearly now.
He’d lost the chance to ever know his son.
I understood that.
I still didn’t forgive the lying.
When Ariella left, she hugged Robert.
Then she hesitated in front of me.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.”
She nodded.
Then she asked, “Could I call you sometime?”
Robert looked up.
I noticed.
So did she.
“Yes.”
After she left, Robert said, “Thank you.”
I turned toward him.
“I am not angry that you have a son you never knew about.”
“I know.”
