Ava eventually sent him a brief note saying she hoped he became honest with his son.
Claire returned his letter unopened.
June placed hers in a drawer and said she might respond someday.
All three choices were valid.
On the first anniversary of the adoption, the girls gave me a new wallet.
Inside was a photograph of them in their graduation gowns and a small card engraved with four words.
The man who remained.
I carried it to work the next morning.
The hardware store had changed over the years.
The old stockroom where the playpens once stood had become an office.
My knees hurt on the stairs, and I needed reading glasses to check inventory sheets.
But the pencil marks recording the girls’ heights were still on the kitchen wall upstairs.
Ava’s line leaned slightly left.
Claire had drawn stars beside hers.
June had once added half an inch while I was at work and argued for weeks that it counted.
I had spent years believing those marks recorded everything I had given up.
Standing there with the adoption card in my wallet, I finally saw what they truly measured.
Not sacrifice.
A life we had built together.
