The Accident
On the way out of town, their car crashed during a violent storm. Andrew suffered a severe head injury. His parents survived with only minor injuries, but he lay unconscious for days. When he woke, he remembered his childhood clearly — but most of the previous two years were gone.
He did not remember me. He did not remember the pregnancy. Sometimes he woke up confused, haunted by images he could not place: a girl under a maple tree, a yellow scarf, the sound of a baby crying.
Doctors warned the family not to overwhelm him. His mother, terrified that anyone from their old life could lead dangerous people to them, made a terrible choice: she decided not to tell him everything.
When Andrew began asking about a girl named Emma, his mother said I had moved far away. When fragments of the pregnancy returned to him, she claimed the baby had never been born. She believed she was protecting him — but instead, she erased us from his life.
As the years passed, Andrew’s memory slowly returned. He remembered my first name, but not my last. His mother continued to insist I had left the country and wanted no contact.
Then, six months before Leo took the test, Andrew’s mother passed away. Among her things, Claire found a sealed envelope addressed to Andrew — a confession. She admitted what she had done: she had intercepted Andrew’s attempts to contact me in the first year after the accident, and even after the investigation ended safely, she had been too ashamed to tell the truth.
The final lines of Claire’s message made my vision blur:
Andrew knows now that his mother lied. He has been searching for you ever since. He believes you may have changed your name. He does not know if the baby survived. Leo, I need to ask you something difficult: Would you like to speak to your father?
