Three nights before his heart gave out, he had looked at me and quietly said, “Leave the porch light on, Pumpkin. Just in case.”
“Go talk to her, Christina,” Noah said softly. “Before she slips out again.”
Susan looked older than twenty should allow—not physically, but in the way life can wear something down inside a person.
“You came,” I whispered.
“He’s still my father,” she replied quietly. “The one who raised us all.”
Behind me, Michael and Mara stiffened instantly. Noah, who now had two children of his own, remembered Thomas packing snacks for them even when his hands shook from exhaustion. To Noah, loyalty looked like peanut butter crackers in little plastic containers.
Mara stepped forward first.
“That’s all you have to say? He waited for you for years, Susan.”
Michael’s voice was tighter. “He sent cards. He called. He left the porch light on every single night.”
Something flickered across Susan’s face—quick, painful, almost frightened.
“I did what I had to do,” she said quietly.
Mara turned away in disgust.
I had only seen Thomas cry a handful of times in my life, and one of those times was the night I found him sitting alone on the porch, holding Susan’s note in trembling hands.
It read: I’m leaving. I’m staying with a friend. I need to build my life on my own terms.
She had disappeared a week after her eighteenth birthday dinner.
For illustrative purposes only
When I asked Thomas, “What do you mean she’s gone?” he handed me the note and said quietly, “I mean, she’s gone.”
When I pressed him for answers, he only shook his head.
“Not mine to tell, Christie.”
Later, when Susan finally answered one of my calls, I shouted first and listened second.
For illustrative purposes only
