“Oh, my God! How… how is this possible?! After all these years, you’re here?!”
“Please,” he said quietly. “I know I don’t have the right. Just give me five minutes.”
I stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door mostly shut behind me.
Hannah couldn’t hear this. Not yet.
“I know I don’t have the right.”
“Five minutes?!” I whispered. “You had 13 years, Victor! Where were you?! Where were you when Luke was in that hospital bed?!”
He flinched.
“He found me,” he said.
“What?”
“Luke. Before the surgery. He tracked me down. Sat across from me at a diner and told me everything.”
The porch tilted under me.
“He found me.”
“Our son told me about Hannah. About the liver transplant. About the risks. He said the doctors mentioned a chance he might not wake up.” Victor’s voice cracked. “He asked me to come. Just to be there. To get tested, at least.”
“And you didn’t.”
“I didn’t.” He looked at the porch boards. “I was angry he’d found me. I told myself he had you and didn’t need me. I said no.”
“He asked me to come.”
“Before Luke left the diner,” Victor continued, “he asked me one thing. He said, ‘If something happens to me, promise you’ll give Hannah this card on her 18th birthday.’ He handed me an envelope. He said he’d like me to include a recent photo of her. Our son wanted her to know he was still with her.”
I couldn’t speak.
“I took it because I was ashamed to say no twice. And then he was gone, and I couldn’t undo any of it.”
“He handed me an envelope.”
