Iris had been counting down to prom for months.
Part 2 — An imagined conclusion to the story.
I looked toward the kitchen.
Iris was opening a cupboard, humming under her breath.
“What truth?” I whispered.
Ryan reached into his jacket pocket and took out a folded program from the prom.
He opened it to a photograph.
A man stood beside the school principal beneath the words Community Scholarship Sponsor.
I knew that face.
Even after seventeen years.
“Your daughter won the scholarship tonight,” Ryan said. “Mr. Bennett presented it.”
My knees weakened.
“He saw her name on the certificate. Then he asked her your name.”
I gripped the back of a chair.
“What did he tell her?”
“That he knew you a long time ago.”
Ryan’s voice faltered.
“He said he might be her father.”
A glass touched the kitchen counter.
I turned.
Iris stood in the doorway holding two glasses of water.
“Mom?”
I could not find an answer quickly enough.
She looked at Ryan.
“You said you’d ask her.”
“I did.”
“No. You gave her a deadline?”
Ryan lowered his eyes.
“Iris, I thought—”
“This is my conversation.”
He nodded immediately.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
She put the glasses down.
Then she faced me.
“Is he?”
“Yes,” I said.
The word seemed too small for what it did.
Iris sat on the sofa without taking off her coat.
“Then why did you tell me you couldn’t find him?”
Because I had been ashamed.
Because the first lie had made the second one easier.
Because every year I waited, telling her felt more impossible.
None of those answers deserved to come first.
“I owe you an explanation.”
She looked at the clock.
“Apparently you have five minutes.”
Ryan winced.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No,” she replied. “You shouldn’t.”
Then she turned back to me.
“Start.”
His name was Adam Bennett.
When I met him, he was studying engineering and working evenings at a restaurant near my office.
Please click the Continue Reading button below to keep reading.
Comments (1)