A soft, broken laugh crackles through the line. “I missed you more than you’ll ever know,” he says, voice thick. “For years I dreamed about hearing your voice grown up, wondering what you’d sound like. Now that you’re here, I can’t believe it’s real.”
His tone—steady, familiar—wraps around me like a memory I never stopped missing. “But Mom said you didn’t want to see me. That you’d moved on and—”
“That’s not true.” There’s pain in his voice, but also a fierce protectiveness that I remember from childhood. “That was never true. I fought for you, Laney. I fought so hard the lawyers bankrupted me, but your mother… she made it impossible. Every time I tried to see you, there was another legal motion, another delay, another hoop to jump through.”
“I didn’t know.” The words come out broken. “She told me you didn’t want me, and it became a forbidden subject for almost twenty years. Then she got sick, and cancer took her three years ago. I never got to ask why we left so suddenly, or why we never heard from you.”
“I knew when she passed,” he says quietly. “I’ve kept tabs on you over the years through social media and public records. When I found out she was sick, I wanted to reach out so badly. But I was terrified you’d reject me after all those years.”
“Grandma tried to tell me,” I whisper. “After Mom died, after she got her own diagnosis. She tried to bring you up, but I shut her down every time. I was so angry at everyone—at you for leaving, at Mom for dying, at myself for not being worth staying for.” My voice cracks. “And now they’re both gone, and I’ll never know the truth about why she did it.”
There’s a long pause. “Maybe we’ll never have all the answers, Sunshine. But I can tell you this, your mother wasn’t evil. She was hurt and confused and made terrible choices from her emotions rather than her rational mind. But she loved you. I know she did.”
The words feel like a slap. “Don’t.” It comes out sharper than I intended. “Don’t defend her to me. Not right now. Not when I’m just finding out my entire childhood was built on lies.”
“I’m not defending her.” His voice is gentle but firm. “I’m just trying to make sure you don’t let this poison everything. You had good memories of her, too, didn’t you? Real ones?”
I think of Mom teaching me to bake cookies, reading to me every night, fierce in her protection of me against anyone who dared criticize. The memories are real, even if they’re tangled up in her manipulations.
“Yes,” I admit reluctantly.
“Then hold on to those. The good and the bad. All of it was real, even the parts built on wrong foundations. Don’t let her mistakes take away the love she showed you.”
I’m quiet for a long moment, processing this. “How can you be so… understanding? After everything she took from us?”
“Because holding onto anger won’t give us those years back. And because I don’t want to waste whatever time we have left being bitter.” His voice softens. “I’m just so grateful to hear your voice again, Sunshine. So grateful you were brave enough to call.”
“God, I’m so angry at her,” I whisper, the admission feeling like betrayal. “She stole twenty years from us. And I feel guilty for being angry because she’s gone and can’t defend herself. But I wish I could ask her why she lied.”
“We’ll never know, Laney, but believe me when I say I would never leave you willingly. Never.” His voice is steady now, sure. “You were the best thing in my life.”
We talk for an hour, filling in twenty years of gaps.
He tells me about the court battles, the lawyers who promised results they couldn’t deliver, the way the system seemed stacked against fathers without unlimited resources. About showing up for a scheduled visitation to find our house empty, stripped bare, no forwarding address. About the private investigator he hired, who finally tracked us down two years later—only for my mother’s lawyer to threaten him with harassment charges if he made contact.
“I sent letters,” he says, voice breaking. “Birthday cards. Christmas presents. Every single one came back ‘Return to Sender.’ I didn’t know whether she kept them from you or if you just didn’t want to answer. I didn’t know if you hated me… or if you’d already forgotten what we’d shared.”
“I never got them.” The words come out strangled. “Not one, Dad. Not one.”
The silence on the line is heavy with shared grief.
I tell him about growing up believing I wasn’t worth loving, about the walls I built to survive, about pushing people away before they could walk out on me. There’s a pause while I weigh whether to mention Ryder. In the end, I do, because this wonderful green male deserves to know I’m trying—learning to trust, to believe someone might actually stay.
“I tried to keep up with you, you know,” he adds, the faintest smile in his voice. “Saw your high school graduation photos online. Even a prom picture or two on Facebook.”
I laugh, watery and surprised. “You were checking up on me?”
“Guilty,” he admits, chuckling softly. “I hope I don’t sound too much like a stalker. I just… wanted to see how you were doing.”
The warmth in his tone undoes me all over again. He didn’t stop caring. He just didn’t know how to reach me.
“You have half-siblings,” he says eventually, and I can hear the smile breaking through the tears in his voice. “Emma’s seventeen and Jake’s fifteen.”
He laughs softly, the sound thick with pride and emotion. “They’ve known about you their whole lives. Your pictures have always had a place of honor in our home,” he says softly. “The kids grew up knowing your face, your name, and how much I love you.”
My throat tightens. “They… they know about me?”
“Of course they do,” he says gently. “And they’re going to be over the moon when I tell them we finally talked. Georgia—my wife—she’s known about you from the beginning, too. She’s been hoping for this call almost as fervently as I have.”
