— Andy”
“There are things you don’t know.”
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***
My hands started shaking.
“No,” I whispered. “No, Jen. No.”
After five years, I’d lost the hope that my daughter would ever come back. Now, Hope blinked at me.
I pressed the note to my lips, then forced myself to move. I called the pediatric clinic and said I was bringing in a baby left in my care.
Then I called Paul.
He answered with, “What now, Jodi?”
“Get over here.”
Hope blinked at me.
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“Jodi, I have work. I have a life.”
“And I have your granddaughter on my kitchen table.”
“What?” he asked.
“Come now, Paul.”
***
He came twenty minutes later. Amber stayed in the car.
Paul stepped into my kitchen, annoyed and complaining. Then he saw the jacket, and all the color left his face.
He stopped dead. “Where did you get that?”
“I have your granddaughter on my kitchen table.”
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I picked up Hope before I answered. “That was my question.”
His eyes landed on the note in my hand and slid away.
“You knew more than you let on, Paul.”
“Don’t do this.”
“Did you know that she was alive? That she left to live her life? That she left to be with someone she loved?”
“Jodi…”
“Did you know, Paul?”
“You knew more than you let on, Paul.”
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Hope stirred. I bounced her against my shoulder.
Paul rubbed his jaw. “She called me once.”
For a second, I couldn’t speak.
“She what?!”
He looked angry now, which meant he was cornered. “A few months after she left. She said she was with Andy. She said she was fine.”
“She called me once.”
“And you let me think she was dead. You told me to mourn my child because she wasn’t coming back.”
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“She made a choice, Jodi. Don’t punish me for her decision.”
Hope let out a thin cry then, and that somehow made everything worse. I swayed with her automatically, rubbing circles over her back.
“You told me for five years that we had no answers.”
“I told her if she came home, she came home alone,” he snapped. “She was sixteen, almost seventeen. She didn’t know what she was doing. She wanted to throw her life away for a college dropout with no future. What was I supposed to do? Encourage it?”
“Don’t punish me for her decision.”
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“No,” I said. “You’d rather be right than have her home, even if it cost us our daughter.”
Amber appeared in the doorway. “Paul…”
I didn’t even look at her. “You don’t get a word in here.”
Paul stared at Hope like she might somehow save him.
Instead, I grabbed the diaper bag and my keys.
“I’m taking Hope to the clinic,” I said. “And when I come back, you need to be gone. I called you here to see if you had any shame.”
I didn’t even look at her.
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“Jodi…”
“I mean it. If you’re still here, I’ll tell the police you withheld contact from a missing child’s mother.”
That got him and Amber moving.
***
At the clinic, Dr. Evans checked Hope over and told me she looked healthy, just a little underweight. She asked careful questions. I gave careful answers. I showed her the note, the supplies, and the jacket.
She asked if I had any family support.
I almost laughed.
“I have coffee and my work colleagues,” I said.
She smiled sadly. “Sometimes that’s how it starts.”
“If you’re still here, I’ll tell the police.”
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***
By noon, I had temporary emergency paperwork from a social worker named Denise and three missed calls from Paul I deleted without hearing.
By two, I was back at the diner because mortgage payments don’t care about tragedy.
I brought Hope because Denise told me not to leave her with anyone I didn’t trust, and trust had become a short list.
My boss, Lena, took one look at the baby carrier behind the register and said, “You have exactly thirty seconds before you tell me what on earth happened.”
I told her enough.
I brought Hope.
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She pressed a hand to her chest. “Jodi.”
I swallowed. “I know.”
The bell over the diner door rang around four.
