He was already in the booth when I arrived, in the far corner, by the window, with a cup of coffee untouched in front of him. He was forty four, as the site had said, and in the pale light of the restaurant I saw Harold in every line of him. The chin. The ears. The heavy, hopeful eyebrows. He stood when he saw me, and I saw that he was nervous, rubbing the palm of his hand against his jeans. He said, “Mrs. Voss. Thank you for coming. I almost did not believe you would.” I said, “Please call me Dorothy.” My voice came out in a whisper.
His name was Daniel Reeves. He drove a delivery truck for a feed company in Twin Falls and coached Little League. He had a wife named Tina, two sons, and a mortgage like anyone. When the waitress came, I ordered tea and a slice of pie I did not intend to eat. We sat there with the shock of everything between us, like a stone on the table. He took a breath. He said, “I told you in the letter I had one question. It is not about money, and it is not about blame. I only want to know about the night I was born.”
I said I would answer if I could. He reached in his jacket and drew out a wallet sized envelope, and from it a small yellowed photograph. A young woman with long red hair, laughing on a porch, holding up a bunch of lilacs. “This is my mother,” he said. “Her name was Janet. She raised me alone in a trailer outside Burley. She worked at a cafe. She said my father was a salesman who got called away. She never said his name until the week before she died. The night I was born, there was a man in the waiting room. She said he stayed until dawn. Do you know if it was him?”
A father who cannot find the courage to stand in a doorway can still leave behind enough love for his children to walk through it for him.
I looked at the photograph for a long time. I did not know the woman. I had never heard her name. But I knew what I was holding. I said, “Daniel, I want to tell you what I found in the tackle box of my husband.” His eyes widened. I took from my purse a small bundle, tied with a green ribbon, that I had found beneath the tray where Harold kept his flies. Thirty one postcards, a stack of receipts, and a letter. The postcards were addressed to Janet Reeves, General Delivery, Burley, Idaho. They were all in the hand of Harold. None had a stamp. They were never mailed.
I read the first one aloud. Dear Janet. I do not know if you will let me see him. I know I have no right. I was a coward and I let you think I would not stand by you. I drove to the hospital the night he was born, and I sat in the waiting room until the sun came up, and I could not make myself walk down the hall. I was afraid I would lose my wife and my daughters and everything I had built. I am ashamed. I will send what I can. Harold. I looked up. Daniel was crying with his hand over his mouth.
There was more. The receipts were from a money order business in Twin Falls. Fifty dollars, every month, for eighteen years, sent to a post office box that belonged to Janet. They had never been returned. She had cashed them all. And near the bottom of the bundle was the last card, written in the spring, in handwriting weak with age. Dear Daniel. If you ever find this, know that I thought of you every birthday. I was proud of you before I ever knew your face. You have a brother and sisters who would like to meet you. I never found the courage to tell them. Forgive me.
Daniel read that card himself. His shoulders shook. I reached across the table and took his hands, which were big and rough and callused, the hands of a man who worked for a living. I told him that my husband had been a gentle man with one great fault, a failure of nerve. I told him that I was not angry, or not much, and that anger was a poor thing to give a man in his first hour of meeting a brother. I said, “You are the son of Harold. That is all I need to know. The rest we will learn.”
We talked for three hours, until the waitress turned off the neon sign. He told me about his mother, who sang in the choir and dried flowers in books. I told him about the daughters of Harold, Beth and Anna, who were already waiting by the phone. They had read the email I sent them that morning. Beth had written back within a minute. She said, Mom, if he looks like Dad, I want to meet him this weekend. I laughed. I showed Daniel the message on my phone. He read it and covered his face. “I have a sister,” he whispered.
He came to Boise on Saturday with his wife and sons. They stood on the porch of my house, uncertain, holding a pie from the grocery. Beth ran down the steps in her stocking feet and threw her arms around his neck before he could say a word. Anna followed. The boys stood on the lawn with their baseball gloves, staring at the aunt they never had. I stood in the door with my hand on the frame and watched my husband, in the faces of five people at once, return to my yard.
In August we scattered some of the ashes of Harold together on Lucky Peak. Daniel brought the postcards, and read the last one aloud in the wind. Then he took out a pen and wrote a reply, on the back of the final card, in his own clear hand. Dear Dad. I got it. I forgive you. I am glad I came. He folded it into the lid of the urn. Beth wept. Anna wept. I held the hand of Daniel, and the sun rose over the water, and the lake, for a minute, was gold.
