My chest tightened.
She raised her eyes to mine, filled with fear and shame that made no sense on the happiest night of our lives.
Then she said, “Forty-three years ago, I gave birth to your child… and I let you believe you never had one.”
For a moment, I thought I had misunderstood.
The room seemed to close in. The small wedding suite, with its floral curtains and brass lamps, suddenly felt suffocating, like the air had been pulled away. I stared at Caroline, waiting for her to take it back, to say stress had overwhelmed her, that this was some terrible mistake. But she didn’t. She sat there, tears gathering in her eyes, looking like someone who had carried a weight inside her for half a century.
“What did you say?” I asked, though I had heard every word.
She swallowed. “The summer after graduation. Before you left. I was pregnant, Daniel.”
I stepped back and braced myself against the dresser. My mind raced through memories I hadn’t touched in decades. That last summer. Her crying when I told her my enlistment date. The way her letters stopped after my second message from boot camp. Her mother telling one of my friends that Caroline had left early for school.
“You told me you met someone else,” I said. “You sent me that letter.”
“I know.”
“You said it was over.”
