One completely ordinary Tuesday afternoon, my mother’s name flashed across my phone screen at the exact moment she should have been sitting in her nursing lecture. Instead of her usual long voicemail, there was only a short text message waiting for me. Three words that instantly made my stomach tighten.
Your father called.
Not just any father. Henry. The man who had disappeared from our lives ten years earlier after abandoning his pregnant wife and ten children for a younger woman from his church choir. And now, after a decade of silence, he suddenly wanted to come home.
By the time I rushed into our kitchen, several of my younger siblings were hovering nervously in the hallway, pretending not to listen. My mother sat frozen at the dining table, her phone lying face-up in front of her like it was dangerous to touch. Her eyes were swollen from crying, but her voice stayed calm when she finally looked at me.
“He says he wants to come back.”
I almost laughed.
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