But for the first time, giving me away and not wanting me no longer felt like exactly the same thing.
“Margaret tried too,” Walter said.
He showed me pages covered in my grandmother’s handwriting.
Names.
Dates.
Phone numbers.
Crossed-out addresses.
Notes marking every dead end.
“After Kate died, Margaret kept saying somebody had to find you. Then she got sick.”
“And then she died.”
He nodded.
“So you finally did the test.”
“Yes.”
I looked around his small living room.
“Why move next door?”
“I didn’t know how to contact you.”
“You could have called.”
“I know.”
“You could have written.”
“I know.”
“You could have knocked on my door and said, ‘Hi, I’m your grandfather.'”
“I know.”
The fact that he wouldn’t defend himself somehow made me even angrier.
“Then why didn’t you?”
Walter sat across from me.
“I meant to. Before I moved, I practiced what I’d say.”
“What happened?”
“I met you.”
I stared at him.
“That sounds ridiculous.”
“It is.”
He rubbed his hands together.
“The first week, you told me something about growing up in foster homes. Just casually. You were talking about why you wanted your kids to have one home they could always come back to.”
I remembered that conversation.
I had been pulling weeds.
Walter had been standing near the fence.
“I went home,” he continued, “and realized what we’d believed all those years wasn’t true. Kate thought she’d given you a stable home. Margaret thought you had parents somewhere. And there you were telling me you grew up being moved around.”
His voice cracked.
“I didn’t know how to tell you I belonged to the family that had lost you.”
“So you said nothing.”
“That first day, yes. Then I told myself I’d tell you the next.”
“And then?”
“Your kids started coming over.”
I looked away.
“Then you invited me for coffee. Then dinner. Then your little one called me Grandpa.”
A faint smile crossed his face for half a second before disappearing.
“That should’ve been the moment I told you. Instead, I got scared.”
“Of what?”
“That I’d lose all of you.”
I got up and walked toward the window.
From there, I could see my house.
Two houses.
One fence.
Two years.
“You found me,” I said. “Do you understand that? I spent my childhood wondering why nobody came. You finally found me, and then you let me spend two more years not knowing.”
“I know.”
“No. I don’t think you do.”
“I do, Abby.”
His voice stayed quiet.
“Finding you late wasn’t my choice. Not telling you once I did was.”
That stopped me.
“I was a coward,” he said. “Every week I waited made it worse. And every week I loved you all more, which made me more afraid. There’s no excuse for that.”
I looked down at Kate’s letter.
“Why now?”
“I’d decided to tell you after I got sick.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Then we handed you adoption papers.”
Walter gave a small, sad laugh.
