Eventually I realized I didn’t need to know what I wanted forever.
I only needed to know what I wanted next.
One conversation.
So I called.
Gabriel answered.
I said my name.
Then my mother’s.
The silence lasted so long I thought the line had disconnected.
Finally, he whispered, “You can’t be.”
I closed my eyes.
“I think I am.”
He cried.
Not loudly.
There was just a broken sound, followed by breathing he couldn’t steady.
“I went to the hospital,” he said.
“What?”
“When you were born.”
My chest tightened.
“She wouldn’t see me. Her sister came downstairs and said the baby hadn’t survived.”
I knew instantly who he meant.
Aunt Margaret.
The discovery hurt.
But by then I’d learned not to make conclusions before conversations.
I visited Margaret the next day.
She didn’t deny it.
“Your mother asked me to tell him.”
“Why?”
“Because she was afraid.”
“Of Gabriel?”
