A sharp crack. Then a heavy thud.
“Hello? Hello?!” I shrieked.
The line remained open.
I called 911 and gave them his address, then grabbed my keys.
The drive to that town felt twice as long as it should have.
Who was this man? Why had he been waiting for Grandpa to call? Why did his voice crack when I said my name?
Why had he been waiting for Grandpa to call?
I turned onto his street just as the ambulance was pulling away.
A small crowd of neighbors stood on the front lawn in the evening light. One of them, an older woman in a green cardigan, looked at me when I got out of my car.
“What happened?” I urged.
“His heart,” the woman said. “He collapsed. They just took Simon.”
I stood there for a moment, then walked up to the front porch.
I turned onto his street just as the ambulance was pulling away.
There was a ceramic rooster by the door, slightly chipped along one wing.
The door was unlocked. I pushed it open and stepped inside.
The first thing I noticed was how neat everything was.
A folded newspaper on the side table, open to the crossword, three clues filled in and the rest blank. A coffee mug washed and upside down on a dish towel beside the sink. A bookshelf organized by color.
And then I saw the photographs on the small table near the hallway.
The first thing I noticed was how neat everything was.
My grandfather, Robin, younger than I’d ever seen him, standing beside a little girl in a red coat. The girl was maybe four years old. She had the same toothless grin as the photograph from his wallet.
I picked up the frame and looked at the date stamped on the back.
The girl was too young to be me. The years didn’t match.
I set it down and moved deeper into the house.
And then I stopped moving entirely.
Along the far wall, on a low shelf lined with albums, were photographs of me.
The girl was maybe four years old.
My school science fair, age nine, standing next to a papier-mâché volcano I had stayed up until midnight finishing. My seventh birthday, the one where Grandpa had let me pick any cake flavor. Riding my bike in the library parking lot.
I picked up the one from the library parking lot, and my hands went numb.
In the background, across the street, the glass of a parked truck caught the reflection of a man standing very still, watching. The same man whose photo sat on the shelf inside the house.
“Who are you, Simon?” I whispered.
***
The glass of a parked truck caught the reflection of a man standing very still, watching.
The hospital was 20 minutes away, and I drove every one of them in silence.
The nurse at the front desk directed me to room 14 without much fuss once I explained I was family. I hadn’t planned to say that. It just came out.
The man in the bed looked to be in his late 50s.
When he opened his eyes and saw me standing in the doorway, he went still.
The man in the bed looked to be in his late 50s.
Then, slowly, he tried to push himself upright in the bed, straightening his posture.
Tears sprang to his eyes before he said a single word.
“Amelia,” he finally whispered.
I stepped closer.
“How do you know my name, Simon?”
He looked at me for a long moment. His jaw worked once, as if he were testing the words before he said them. When he finally spoke, the words hit me like an earthquake.
“Because I’m your father.”
Tears sprang to his eyes before he said a single word.
I sat in the chair beside his bed and let him talk.
Thirty years ago, my mother had fallen in love with Simon.
Grandpa had disapproved of everything he had. Not out of meanness, but out of fear.
Simon was young and had no stable income, and Grandpa had spent his whole life worrying about his daughter.
The two men clashed constantly.
But my mother chose Simon, and they married without Grandpa’s blessing. The only things she took from his house were the photographs of the two of them together. Grandpa had raised her alone after Grandma passed away giving birth.
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