Loveless Mother

The Man in the Photograph

A week feels like a month.

Every day, I check my phone more times than I can count. Every time it buzzes, my stomach knots. But it’s never Lana.

Evelyn doesn’t ask questions. She just watches me, like she’s waiting too.

On the sixth day, I get a message.

LANA: “Got something. Meet me tomorrow. Noon. 14th and Belmont.”

That’s all. No details. No hints. Just a time and place.

I barely sleep that night.

---

It’s a small café on the corner—faded sign, cracked windows, the kind of place no one looks at twice. Lana’s already inside, sitting in the back, two mugs of coffee in front of her.

She slides one toward me as I sit.

“Didn’t know how you take it.”

“Black,” I say.

“Of course you do.” She smirks, then pulls a manila folder from her bag. Sets it gently on the table like it might explode.

I don’t touch it.

“His name is Adrian Carter,” she says quietly. “He’s still alive.”

The name hits me like cold water.

“He’s been in and out of trouble. Mostly petty stuff. Never remarried. No kids. Moved around a lot. But he never left the state.”

I open the folder.

Inside: a photo.

He’s older now. Gray around the temples. Tired eyes. He’s standing outside a hardware store, arms crossed, face half in shadow.

I study him like I’m supposed to feel something.

Anything.

But there’s just a hollow ache.

“He lives three hours from here,” Lana adds. “Works part-time. Keeps to himself.”

I trace the edge of the photo with my thumb.

“What if he doesn’t want to see me?”

“Then at least you tried,” she says. “But I think he will.”

“Why?”

She leans back, eyes unreadable. “Because if he’s even half the man I remember, he’s been waiting for this his whole life.”

---

That night, I pack a bag.

Evelyn watches from the doorway, arms folded.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” she says.

I zip up my hoodie. “I think I do.”

She nods slowly, then crosses the room and presses something into my hand.

It’s a second photograph.

Younger. Blurry. She’s sitting beside a man—dark hair, tired smile. He’s holding a baby.

Me.

The edges are worn. Like she’s looked at it more times than she’ll ever admit.

“He wasn’t always lost,” she says.

For once, I don’t argue.

---

Three hours later, I’m standing on the porch of a small, crooked house with peeling paint and a broken mailbox.

I knock.

Footsteps.

Then the door creaks open.

He stares at me. His face goes pale.

I don’t have to say a word.

He knows.

“…Amara?”

My throat tightens.

“Hi,” I whisper. “I think you’re my father.”