Grandfather.
His chest ached with emotions too vast to name.
“I’m sorry,” Kira whispered. “I’m sorry it took me so long to find you.”
Howard swallowed the lump in his throat. “It wasn’t your fault. I should have searched harder. I should have known something was wrong.”
Kira shook her head. “We can’t change the past. But we can still have a future. Will you come to Portland? Get to know your family?”
Howard turned to gaze at the house he had lived in for decades—the calm evenings, the rituals he had established to cover the void.
He then looked at his son. His grandson.
“Yes,” he said, his voice filled with emotion. “I’d like that very much.”
Kira walked forward, and for the first time in nearly fifty years, he felt her arms wrap around him. Then Michael joined them, and Howard stood there, torn between the woman he had never stopped loving and the son he had recently discovered.
For so long, he believed life had passed him by. That love was lost to time.
But love had found its way back.
And this time, he was not going to let it go.
