Iris had been counting down to prom for months.
We were young.
We made plans quickly.
When I told him I was pregnant, he went quiet for a long time.
Then he said he needed to think.
A few days later, he accepted a job in another state.
“He left?” Iris asked.
“Yes.”
“Did he know about me?”
“He knew I was pregnant.”
Her hands tightened around the edge of her coat.
I forced myself to continue.
“For the first few months, I called. I wrote. Some messages went unanswered. Eventually, he told me he wasn’t ready to be a father.”
Ryan looked away.
Iris kept watching me.
“What happened after that?”
“My mother helped me. I worked. You were born.”
“And?”
I looked down.
“When you were six, he wrote again.”
The room became painfully still.
“He wrote?”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“To know whether he could meet you.”
Iris blinked.
“Did you answer?”
“I told him no.”
She stood.
I started to rise, but she lifted a hand.
“Don’t.”
I stayed where I was.
“You told me he couldn’t be found.”
“I know.”
“You watched me look for him.”
I remembered the school assignment about family history.
The questions after Father’s Day advertisements.
The evening she had asked whether she resembled anyone I knew.
I had answered only the questions that felt safe.
“I was frightened,” I said. “He had hurt us before. I thought he would come back, make promises, and leave again.”
“So you decided I should believe he never came back at all.”
“Yes.”
There was no gentler version.
Iris walked to the window.
Outside, Ryan’s car sat beneath the porch light.
“I need to know what happened tonight,” I said carefully. “Did he speak to you alone?”
“No. Ryan was there. So was Mrs. Alvarez.”
“Good.”
She turned.
“Don’t make that the subject.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“You are. You’re doing it again. Finding something else to worry about so we don’t talk about what you did.”
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