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Still somehow capable of hurting me.
“I thought leaving them was the worst thing I could ever do. I was wrong. The worst thing would have been taking them with me when I knew I couldn’t care for them.”
My hands began to shake.
“I’ve been offered a job in another state. I’m leaving tomorrow. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
June paused.
Then she looked at me.
“He didn’t disappear because he didn’t love us.”
She swallowed.
“He disappeared because he thought you could give us something he couldn’t.”
A murmur moved through the auditorium.
I felt tears running down my face.
I didn’t bother wiping them away.
For twenty-two years, I had carried two things inside me.
Love for those girls.
And anger at my brother.
I had never realized how much space the anger occupied.
Then June read the final paragraph.
“Please don’t let them grow up believing they were abandoned.”
She stopped.
Ava took the paper.
“And please don’t tell them I wrote this.”
I stared at them.
“Why?”
Claire smiled through her tears.
“Because he wanted us to know that you were our father.”
The auditorium erupted in applause.
I didn’t hear it.
All I could see were three little girls from twenty-two years ago.
Ava asleep against my chest.
Claire crying because she hated peas.
June refusing to sleep unless I walked around the apartment with her.
Three car seats.
One diaper bag.
A gas receipt.
I had thought that was where my life changed.
I was wrong.
It changed again that afternoon.
Because June wasn’t finished.
She turned toward the dean.