**Part 3**
Two days later, an envelope appeared on my porch.
Lucas’s name was written across it.
I hated opening something addressed to Lucas. But he was ten, and I was responsible for what entered his life.
One line stayed with me.
An envelope appeared on my porch.
“I was scared when I was eighteen, but being scared doesn’t explain ten years.”
He asked for no forgiveness and blamed no one.
Before I gave it to Lucas, I called Trudy again.
“Can you meet me?”
She sounded surprised.
“Can you meet me?”
“I thought you’d never want to see me again.”
“I didn’t say I forgave you.”
“I understand.”
“There’s something else I need.”
We met the next afternoon.
This time, I was there for Teagan.
“I didn’t say I forgave you.”
“Was she scared?” I asked.
Trudy’s expression softened.
“Yes.”
“Was she alone?”
“No. People were with her the whole time.”
The answer hit harder than I expected.
“Was she scared?”
“Did she ask for me?”
“Yes.”
My throat tightened.
“Did she think I’d left?”
“No. She knew you were waiting nearby.”
“What did she say?”
“Did she ask for me?”
Trudy thought for a moment.
“She worried she hadn’t bought enough diapers.”
I laughed through my tears. “That sounds like her.”
“Then she talked about you.”
I looked up.
“What about me?”
“She worried she hadn’t bought enough diapers.”
“She said you made pancakes too thick and refused to admit it.”
A laugh escaped me.
Even now, Teagan could still embarrass me.
“She wasn’t angry with you,” Trudy said.
“She should’ve been. I spent more time asking about Lucas’s father than asking my daughter about her fears.”
“Maybe. But that isn’t what she gave me.”
“She wasn’t angry with you.”
I asked the question I’d carried for years.
“Did she know I loved her?”
Trudy didn’t hesitate.
“Yes.”
That was the first thing Trudy had given me that didn’t feel like another wound.
“Did she know I loved her?”
That evening, Lucas found the photograph on the kitchen table.
“That’s him, isn’t it?”
My first instinct was to reach for it.
Instead, I turned off the faucet, dried my hands, sat down.
“Yes, my boy.”
Lucas climbed into the chair across from me.
“That’s him, isn’t it?”
“Did he know about me?”
“Yes.”
“Then why wasn’t he here?”
“He was scared when he was young. He listened to his parents instead of making his own choice.”
Lucas waited.
“Did he know about me?”
“But later, he had choices of his own, and he still stayed away.”
“Did Mom want him to stay?”
“She wanted him to choose you for himself.”
“Did he?”
I forced myself not to soften it.
“Not when he should have.”
“Did Mom want him to stay?”
Lucas looked at the photograph.
“Do you hate him?”
“I did before I knew who he was.”
“And now?”
“I understand him better now. That isn’t the same as forgiving him.”
He nodded slowly.
“I did before I knew who he was.”
“Do I have to meet him, Grandma?”
“No.”
“But can I?”
Every frightened part of me wanted to say not yet.
For ten years, Lucas and I had been enough.
What if letting this man in changed us?
“But can I?”
Then I remembered Teagan’s letter.
“You never asked why I was scared.”
I wasn’t going to make Lucas pay for my fears.
“Yes.”
