“I have to go,” he whispered, his voice ragged.
“Dad?” Lila said, confused. “What happened?”
“Greg,” I said, trying not to panic, “where are you going? It’s Christmas. What about our family?”
But he didn’t answer.
“Dad?”
He stood abruptly, still holding the box. Then he knelt, cupped Lila’s face tenderly, and kissed her brow.
“I love you so much, sweetheart. Dad needs to attend to something urgent, okay? I promise I’ll be back.”
She nodded, but I could see the fear in her eyes. She clutched her stuffed animal tighter.
Greg rushed into our bedroom. I followed him, my heart in my throat.
“What’s happening?” I asked, blocking the door. “You’re scaring me.”
“You’re scaring me.”
He didn’t even look at me as he pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt. His hands fumbled with the zipper.
“Greg, talk to me. What was in the box?”
“I can’t,” he said. “Not yet. I have to figure this out.”
“Figure out what?” I said, my voice rising. “This is our life. You don’t get to walk out without any explanation.”
He finally looked at me. His face was pale; his eyes were red.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “Please. I need to do this alone.”
And with that, he left on Christmas Day.
“Figure out what?”
The front door closed with a soft click that somehow felt louder than a slam.
Lila and I sat in silence. The lights blinked, the cinnamon rolls burned, and time crawled.
I told Lila that Daddy had an emergency and that he would be home soon. She didn’t cry, but she didn’t talk much either.
I must have checked my phone a hundred times. Greg didn’t call, didn’t text — nothing.
Lila and I sat in silence.
When he finally came home, it was almost 9 p.m. He looked like he had been through a war. His coat was dusted with snow, and his face was gaunt.
He didn’t even take his shoes off. Just walked over to me, reached into his pocket, and held out the small, crumpled box.
“Are you ready to know?” he asked. My heart thudded as I reached for the box.
I opened it slowly, unsure of what I was bracing for. A letter? A keepsake? But what I found was far more devastating than anything I had imagined.
A keepsake?
Inside was a photograph. Slightly faded, like it had been handled too many times. In it, a woman stood beside a teenage girl. The woman — Callie — looked older, but her expression hadn’t changed much from the one I had seen once in an old college album Greg had shared.
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