She gave him up.
His name was Brian.
She wrote about the day she handed him over to the orphanage, how she held him for the last time, counted his tiny fingers, kissed his forehead. How Mrs. Baker, the woman who ran the place, promised to take good care of him. How Brenda walked out of that building with empty arms and a broken heart.
But she did not stop there.
She could not.
For forty years, she watched over him from a distance. She hired a private investigator named Alan Ross. She paid him every month to keep track of Brian, to send her photographs, to tell her where he was, what he was doing, if he was safe.
I read page after page. Reports from Alan Ross. Updates on Brian’s life. School records. Jobs he worked. Places he lived.
Brenda had kept everything.
Every scrap of paper. Every photograph. Every piece of evidence that her son was still out there, still alive, still breathing.
And then I got to the last few pages, the ones written just weeks before she passed away.
Brian is forty years old now, she wrote. He works as a carpenter in a small town about two hundred miles from here. He lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment above a hardware store. He has no family, no wife, no children. He has spent his whole life thinking no one wanted him.
And I did that to him.
I made him believe he was unwanted.
Unloved.
Her handwriting became shaky here. I could see where the ink had smudged, like she had been crying as she wrote.
Paul, she continued, I know I should have told you about him. I know I should have trusted you. But I was so afraid. Afraid you would think less of me. Afraid you would leave. Afraid you would not understand. So I kept him a secret. I kept him locked away in this shed, hidden from the world. Hidden from you. And now I am dying and I cannot fix what I have done.
I stopped reading.
My hands were shaking. My chest felt tight. I could barely breathe.
I set the journal down and looked at the small wooden box in the drawer, the one I had seen earlier but had not opened. I picked it up carefully and lifted the lid.
Inside were photographs.
Dozens of them.
All of Brian.
The first one showed a baby wrapped in a blue blanket. His eyes were closed. His little fists were curled up against his chest. On the back, someone had written Brian, three days old.
I flipped to the next one. A toddler sitting on a swing, smiling at the camera. Then a boy in a school uniform holding a lunchbox. A teenager standing in front of a car, looking awkward and unsure.
And finally, a man.
A grown man with dark hair and tired eyes.
He was standing in front of a woodworking shop, holding a piece of carved oak in his hands.
On the back of that photograph, it said Brian, age 40, still alone.
I stared at the picture for a long time.
He looked like her.
He had Brenda’s eyes, her nose, her smile. I had looked at my wife’s face every day for 37 years.
And now I was looking at a stranger who had her face too.
I set the photograph down and picked up the journal again.
There was one more page.
One final entry.
Paul, she wrote, if you are reading this, then I am gone. And I am so, so sorry. I am sorry for lying to you. I am sorry for keeping this from you. But I need you to do something for me. Please, Paul, find him. Find Brian. Give him the family I never could. He deserves a chance. He deserves to know he was loved. Please do this for me. Do this for him.
I closed the journal and set it down on the desk.
I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes. My mind was spinning. My heart was breaking.
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