He holds out a folded picture to me no more than four inches all the way around. The edges are tattered but the faces are clear. I suck in a breath.
“Where did you get this?”
“It fell out of your dad’s pocket on the line,” he says.
It’s the one that used to rest on the nightstand in my bedroom.
“You want to tell me about it?” he asks.
I shake my head. I wouldn’t know what to tell him. I’ve had a million questions go unanswered about it myself.
What hospital was I born at?
How long did she hold me like that?
Did she love me?
Questions I’ve been too afraid to ask after he shut me down the first time.
The rustle of a nearby tree sweeps me back to that night: the last time I saw this picture.
“Daddy, will you tell me a story?”
“Okay. One story, then it’s time for you to get to bed.”
He tucked me under the weight of a heavy quilt, and I looked out the window to see the branches of a pine tree swaying.
Wind. It reminded me that he was leaving soon.
“Once upon a time…” he started.
“No, Daddy. Arealstory.” My small hands reached over to the nightstand and hugged the gold frame. “The one about me and Mommy.”
He peeled my fingers off the frame and set it gently back where it came from. “It’s getting late, Hailey. We should get you to sleep.”
“But youpromised,” I whined.
He shook his head. “There is no story. She’s gone.”
A flash of grief passed over his face that night, and I hated seeing him like that.
Whenever he started to look that way, he’d always leave for work early. So, I told him it was okay. I dropped it, even though it wasn’t. At least not to me. But I didn’t want him to leave me yet, so I learned to ask for a different story.
I kept things surface level after that. It was my fault he didn’t want to stick around. I pushed him away.
But Reed’s never once made me feel afraid to ask hard questions or tell him what I’m thinking. He feels safe to open up to.
“It’s a picture of me and my mother,” I say. “The only one that was ever taken.”
Even now, I study her in her hospital gown, looking exhausted but enamored with the newborn version of me wrapped in a tight bundle in her arms.
A tear slips from the corner of my eye and I shake my head. “He wouldn’t carry this around with him. He doesn’t care.”
Reed touches my hand. It’s a simple gesture, but one I feel to my core.
“I don’t think caring is the problem here, Red. I think the man cares a whole lot more than he lets on. There’s a reason he’s hiding this in the pocket of his clothes. He’s protecting himself.”
“From what?”
