The word echoed through my mind.
Mia sat up and hugged the woman as though they had known each other for years.
“Did you have another bad dream?” she asked.
Gladys nodded.
“I couldn’t find Kyle.”
“I’m right here, Mom,” Kyle said gently.
Only after Gladys calmed down did Mia notice me.
“Mom! You’re home.”
I hugged her tightly.
“What is happening?”
Mia glanced toward her father.
“Dad was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“When you came home.”
“I am home.”
After Kyle helped Gladys return to the bedroom, Mia began folding her blanket.
“You should be sleeping upstairs,” I said.
“I’ve been sleeping here since Grandma arrived.”
My anger rose instantly.
“You’ve spent four nights on the kitchen floor?”
“It was my idea.”
“No twelve-year-old chooses this.”
Mia lowered her voice.
“Grandma wakes up frightened. If she can’t see someone nearby, she panics.”
“Why did she take your room?”
“Because she thinks it belongs to her.”
Kyle returned looking exhausted. Dark circles surrounded his eyes, and his clothes were wrinkled.
“When were you planning to tell me that your mother had returned?”
“I only found out four days ago.”
He explained that police officers had found Gladys wandering outside a grocery store. She could not remember where she lived, but something inside her purse eventually led them to Kyle.
He had believed for his entire life that she had willingly left him.
“I didn’t even recognize her,” he admitted. “Thirty years changes someone.”
I asked why he had not called me. He showed me his damaged phone—missed calls, failed video calls, and messages that had never gone through because I had been traveling overseas.
Still, I felt he should have found another way.
“I wanted to tell you,” he said. “But every hour, I discovered something that made less sense.”
“What do you mean?”
“The woman I met isn’t the mother I spent my life hating.”
Gladys suddenly called from the bedroom.
“Kyle? I can’t find my little boy.”
Mia stepped beside her.
“He’s safe, Grandma. He’s right here.”
Kyle knelt in front of his mother.
“I’m here.”
Gladys held his face between her trembling hands.
Then she whispered, “They told me you were better off without me.”
Kyle closed his eyes.
Gladys looked around the room again.
“But where is my little boy? He’s only six.”
Kyle rested his forehead against the closed bedroom door after she fell asleep.
His shoulders began to shake.
I had never seen my husband cry before.
“How do I keep hating her,” he whispered, “when she apologized before she even understood who I was?”
PART 2: THE LETTERS THAT NEVER ARRIVED
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