Chapter 11
The second paper had stayed on the granite island exactly where Daniel set it. I hadn't touched it yet. It wasn't sealed, just folded in thirds, the white kind of paper that felt too clean for our kitchen. The seal was only on the first envelope, but this one felt heavier somehow. Mom was still standing on the other side of the island, her hands flat on the edge like she needed it to hold her up. Daniel had stepped back half a step, giving me space, his hands in his pockets now.
"You should open it," Daniel said quietly. He was looking at me, not at her.
Mom's breath caught. "Ethan—"
I reached before she could finish. My fingers were a little damp and the paper stuck for a second. I pulled it toward me across the cold granite. The kitchen light hummed overhead. The refrigerator was buzzing behind us, but it sounded far away.
I unfolded it.
There were two things inside. The top sheet was a document with a lot of typed lines and small print and a place at the bottom for a signature. Words I kind of knew but had only seen on school forms. Acknowledgment of Paternity. Voluntary. Waiver and Consent. There were blank lines for printed name, signature, date. And at the top, a name typed out: Michael Reyes.
Underneath that, there was a small photo, printed on regular paper, maybe from a printer. It was a little blurry at the edges. A guy in his early twenties, sitting on the tailgate of a truck, smiling with his eyes squinted from the sun. Light brown hair, cut shorter than mine but the same color. Same shape of the face. Same gap between his front teeth that I saw in the mirror every morning when I brushed.
My stomach dropped.
"That's him," Daniel said. "When he was twenty-two."
I held the photo with both hands so it wouldn't shake. I looked from the photo to Daniel and back again. Daniel's hair was grayer, and he had stubble, but now I could see it. The nose, the way his forehead creased. They looked like before-and-after of the same person.
Mom made a small sound. I looked up and her hand was over her mouth, her gold earrings catching the light. Her eyes were wet and she wasn't wiping them.
I put the photo down and picked up the typed letter that had been underneath. It wasn't long. His handwriting was neat and slanted, in black ink on lined paper that had been folded to fit with the other things.
Ethan — If you're reading this, it means Daniel kept his word and you got the first letter. I wrote this part separately because I don't want you to think the paper underneath is a trick. It's not. It's a choice I should have given your mom and you a long time ago. I never wanted to force my way into your life. I was young and I left and I told myself it was better that way. That was my mistake, not your mom's. The paper lets you decide. If you sign it with your mom, it corrects the record and lets me be listed properly. If you don't, nothing changes and I never contact you again unless you want me to. You don't owe me anything. I just wanted you to have the choice I didn't give you before. — M.
I read it twice. The words "you don't owe me" got blurry the second time.
"So I can say no?" I asked. My voice sounded smaller than I wanted.
Daniel nodded once, slow. "That's why he left it unsigned on his side. It's only valid if you and your mom both want it. He told me if you said no, I was supposed to tear it up in front of you and leave."
Mom slid around the island. She didn't try to take the papers. She just came to stand next to me, close enough that her beige shirt brushed my arm. She smelled like her hand lotion and the chicken that was still in the oven, starting to burn a little.
"I kept them," she whispered. She wasn't looking at me or Daniel, she was looking at the wax seal on the first envelope, her face all tight. "Oh, Ethan, I kept them."
"What?" I said.
Her hands were shaking. She wiped under her eyes with the back of her wrist. "The letters. From before you were born. He sent them to my apartment in Raleigh, after. With that same seal. He melted it himself, he thought it was romantic." She let out a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "I told myself if I put them away you would never have to wonder. I put them in the blue box on the top shelf of my closet. Under my sweaters. I never opened the last two."
The kitchen got very quiet. I could hear the oven fan ticking.
I was still holding the photo and the waiver. My thumb had left a smudge on the corner of the photo. I understood now what Daniel had meant about something changing if we opened it. It wasn't just knowing. It was that now I had to decide something, and Mom couldn't decide it for me alone anymore.
"I didn't know about the box," I said.
"I know," she said. "I should have told you."
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Daniel stayed where he was, his hands still in his bomber jacket pockets. He wasn't rushing us.
I looked down at the paper that said my name could be different if I wanted, at the picture of a kid who looked like me sitting on a truck, and I realized I was holding the choice in both hands.
