My sixteen-year-old daughter read the letter from the father she’d never met, looked up at me, and said, “He was looking for us.” I had nothing to say back. We stayed right there on the kitchen floor. Neither of us made a move to get up.
The tiles were cold and hard under us, but it didn’t seem to matter. Isla set the letter down carefully, like it was something fragile, then pulled her knees up to her chest and just… waited.
That was so typical of her. She had this quiet patience that could loosen even the tightest knots in me. She’d learned a long time ago that pushing me for answers only made me shut down. So instead, she gave me space, and somehow that open, gentle silence was harder to hide from than any question she could have asked.
So I told her everything. Not the clean, caref
