Our children?
My hand shook as I opened the envelope.
Inside were three things.
A letter.
A silver locket.
And a folded photograph.
I opened the photograph first.
Claire sat on a hospital bed, exhausted and glowing, holding two newborn babies wrapped in blue blankets. Her hair was tied messily behind her head. Her smile was soft, tearful, radiant.
On the back she had written:
Lucas Alexander. Noah James. Born October 18th. They have your eyes.
My knees nearly gave out.
Seven years.
Seven years of birthdays I hadn’t attended.
Seven years of first steps, first words, fevers, nightmares, scraped knees, lost teeth.
Seven years of fatherhood stolen from me.
I unfolded the letter.
Alex,
If you are reading this, it means the boys found you. It means I failed to keep them hidden, or I finally ran out of time.
Please don’t hate me before you finish reading.
I loved you. I never stopped loving you. Leaving you was not weakness, and it was not betrayal. It was the only way I knew how to keep you alive.
I read the sentence twice.
Keep me alive?
A coldness crept along my spine.
You were never supposed to know about the pregnancy. That was what your father demanded. He came to me three days after I told him I was carrying your child. He knew before you did. I still don’t know how.
He said a child would make you vulnerable. He said Sterling men did not belong to women, families, or sentiment. They belonged to legacy.
I heard my own heartbeat thudding in my ears.
My father.
Richard Sterling.
Dead now for five years, buried beneath black marble and a thousand lies.
Claire’s letter continued.
He offered me money first. Then he threatened my mother’s medical care. Then he showed me photographs of you taken from across the street, outside your apartment, outside your office, outside the restaurant where you proposed to me.
He told me accidents happen to men who refuse to obey.
My mouth went dry.
I looked across the office.
Lucas and Noah were still at the window, completely unaware that every word on the paper was pulling the floor out from under their lives.
I kept reading.
I left because I believed him.
For years, I stayed away. I raised the boys in small towns, under different names. I watched news of you from far away. I saw you become powerful. Colder. Harder. I told myself that was safer. I told myself you had survived.
Then came your accident.
The letter blurred.
The accident.