PART 2: THE LETTERS THAT NEVER ARRIVED
The next morning, Kyle and I visited the assisted-living center where Gladys had stayed before wandering away.
The director, Linda, brought us into her office and opened a thick file.
“Your mother arrived here three years ago,” she explained.
“Who admitted her?” Kyle asked.
“A man named Robert.”
Kyle’s face tightened.
“That’s my father.”
Robert had visited Gladys for several months before suddenly stopping. He had also failed to provide an updated emergency contact.
Kyle looked through the documents.
“My name isn’t anywhere.”
“No,” Linda said.
“Then how did the police find me?”
Linda removed a small envelope from the file and unfolded a faded index card.
On one side was a child’s drawing of a house. On the other was an old telephone number. Beneath it, written in shaky handwriting, were four words:
**My son. Never forget.**
Kyle covered his mouth.
“That was my childhood telephone number.”
Although it had been disconnected for decades, the police had traced old records until they found him.
“She carried this all these years,” Kyle whispered.
“She may have forgotten her current address,” Linda said, “but she never forgot her little boy.”
When we returned home, Gladys and Mia were standing in the backyard, watching butterflies move through the garden.
Gladys pointed toward an oak tree.
“Kyle used to climb that.”
Kyle smiled sadly.
“I never lived here, Mom.”
She looked confused for a moment, then smiled again.
“Perhaps not.”
That evening, Kyle opened the suitcase the care center had returned with Gladys’s belongings.
Inside were ordinary items: a sweater, family photographs, and a worn Bible.
At the bottom, he discovered a bundle of letters tied with blue ribbon.
Every envelope was addressed to him.
Every letter had been returned unopened.
The oldest was dated twenty-nine years earlier.
With shaking hands, Kyle opened it.
“My sweet boy,” it began. “Your father says you don’t want to see me. I don’t believe him, but I’ll continue writing until you understand that I never stopped loving you.”
Kyle stared at the rest of the envelopes.
“She wrote every year.”
He pressed one letter against his chest.
“I spent every birthday wondering why she didn’t love me enough to call. All that time, she was waiting for me to answer.”
Mia placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“How am I supposed to mourn thirty years I didn’t even know had been stolen from me?” he asked.
“So Grandpa lied?” Mia whispered.
Kyle slowly nodded.
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