PART 3: The Family I Thought I’d Lost
I gripped the telephone.
“Rachel’s alive?”
“Yes.”
For a moment I could not hear anything else. I had imagined those words thousands of times, but hearing them after forty years felt almost impossible.
“Is she well?”
Thomas hesitated.
“She’s older. She has some health problems. But she’s here.”
I covered my eyes.
“Thank God.”
Thomas told me he had grown up knowing that his family had changed their names for safety reasons. Rachel had said his father could not come with them, but she had not explained everything until he was older.
“I thought you knew we were alive,” he said.
I shook my head, though he could not see me.
“I didn’t. I spent forty years believing you’d been lost in the creek.”
The silence that followed was painful. Finally Thomas spoke.
“Mom said Joanne told her you had to believe that.”
“Joanne told me you never arrived.”
“I know.”
He sounded exhausted.
“There’s a lot we need to talk about.”
I swallowed.
“I’d like that.”
He invited Patrick and me to visit the following week. Before hanging up, I asked about Abigail. Thomas told me she was alive, married, and living a few hours away. She had two grown children.
My daughter was the age of a grandmother now.
I sat in silence after the call. Patrick brought me a glass of water.
“Are you okay?”
I looked at him.
“I don’t know how to be okay yet.”
He nodded.
“Then we don’t have to figure it out tonight.”
For the first time in decades, I went to sleep with something other than grief waiting for me in the morning.
We drove to Oak Ridge the following Tuesday. Patrick insisted on driving because my legs were still weak from the stroke. I held the green tin on my lap, afraid to let it out of my sight.
Thomas met us outside his workshop. He was forty-six years old. I knew that because I had counted every birthday he had missed with me.
He stood near the doorway in work boots and a faded blue shirt, his hands rough from years of carpentry. For a moment neither of us moved.
Then he said, “Dad?”
I had not heard anyone call me that in forty years.
I nodded.
“Hello, son.”
He stepped forward and embraced me. I held him as tightly as my arms would allow. When we finally let go, he wiped his eyes.
“I don’t even know where to start.”
I smiled through my tears.
“Neither do I.”
Inside the workshop, Thomas showed me the furniture he had made. There were cabinets, dining tables, and a rocking chair waiting to be finished. I ran my hand over the smooth wood.
“My father was good with his hands,” I told him. “He would’ve loved this.”
Thomas smiled.
“Mom said you used to fix things around the house.”
“Mostly badly.”
He laughed. It was a wonderful sound.
Later that afternoon, a car pulled up outside. Thomas glanced through the window, and his face softened.
“That’s her.”
My heart began to pound. I pushed myself up from the chair with my cane, my legs trembling beneath me. Patrick moved to steady me, but I waved him off.
The workshop door opened slowly.
I knew her immediately, despite the years. Her hair was silver now, and she walked with a cane. But when she saw me, she stopped in the doorway and covered her mouth.
“Walter.”
