I hadn't seen Eric Dalton in ten years.
Suddenly, I couldn't stop remembering him.
The crooked smile.
The cheap guitar.
The tiny apartment we shared above a laundromat.
The night I told him I was pregnant and he cried because he was happy.
At least, I thought he was.
Then everything changed.
Eric became distant.
Three weeks before Mason was born, he disappeared.
No goodbye.
No explanation.
Only a text:
I'm not ready for this life. I'm sorry.
I spent years believing those words.
Now Jake was telling me they might have been purchased.
"How much?"
He hesitated.
"Thirty thousand initially."
I felt sick.
"Initially?"
"There were later payments."
"For what?"
"To stay away."
Rebecca covered her mouth.
I couldn't speak.
Jake continued.
"Mom thought Eric would drag you down."
"So she bought him?"
"That's what she told me."
"And he accepted."
"Yes."
That part mattered.
Whatever Mom had done, Eric made a choice.
"Where is he?"
"I don't know."
David did.
Eric Dalton lived in Chattanooga.
He owned a small auto repair shop.
And he had another family.
I didn't go immediately.
For three days, I concentrated on Mason.
The wedding video had spread online after one guest posted a short clip of Mason defending me. Thankfully, his face had been blurred in most reposts after I requested privacy, but Nashville suddenly seemed too small.
Strangers sent messages calling Mason brave.
Some called my family monsters.
I didn't want either label.
I wanted my son to be nine.
On Thursday, Mom appeared outside my apartment.
I almost didn't open the door.
She looked exhausted.
"Five minutes," she said.
"No."
"Sarah."
"Eleven years, Mom. You had eleven years."
Her eyes narrowed.
"I did what I had to do."
That sentence erased the last trace of guilt I felt.
"You stole from me."
"I protected this family."
"You paid my son's father to disappear."
Her expression changed.
So Jake had told the truth.
"He was weak."
"You didn't get to make that decision."
"He took the money, didn't he?"
The cruelty of that truth hit hard.
"That doesn't excuse you."
Mom stepped closer.
"You don't understand what your father was doing. He was going to leave me with scraps while giving millions to children who hadn't earned anything."
"Children?"
"You and Jake."
"I'm your daughter."
"And I sacrificed my life raising you."
There it was.
The debt she believed we owed simply for existing.
"Did Dad know you paid Eric?"
"No."
"Did Dad know you hated me?"
Her face flickered.
For half a second, something vulnerable appeared.
Then vanished.
"I never hated you."
"You had a strange way of showing it."
I closed the door.
She put her hand against it.
"Sarah, if you pursue this legally, Jake could lose everything."
I stared at her through the narrowing gap.
"You mean everything he bought with what belonged to me?"
"He's your brother."
"And I'm his sister."
I closed the door.
The following morning, I drove to Chattanooga.
Eric's shop was easy to find.
He was underneath a pickup when I entered.
"Can I help—"
He saw me.
The wrench fell from his hand.
"Sarah."
Ten years vanished from his face in an instant.
He looked older.
So did I.
"We need to talk."
His shoulders dropped.
"I wondered when this day would come."
That hurt almost as much as everything else.
"You knew?"
"I knew eventually you'd find out."
"Tell me."
We sat in his office.
Eric admitted it.
Mom approached him after Dad's funeral.
I was seven months pregnant.
She told Eric he would never be good enough for me.
Then she offered money.
"I said no."
"But eventually you said yes."
His eyes filled with shame.
"My younger brother owed dangerous people money. I thought thirty thousand could save him."
"So you sold your son."
"No."
"That's exactly what you did."
"I thought I'd come back."
"But Mom kept paying you."
He looked down.
"Yes."
"How much altogether?"
"About eighty-five thousand."
I couldn't believe it.
"For staying away from your own child."
He nodded.
Then he opened a drawer.
Inside was a stack of envelopes.
Birthday cards.
One for every year of Mason's life.
"Why didn't you send them?"
"Your mother returned the first two."
I stared at him.
"Then why not come to me?"
"Because I'm a coward."
At least he didn't lie.
I stood.
Eric didn't stop me.
At the door, he said, "Sarah, there's something else."
I turned.
"Your father came to see me before he died."
My breath caught.
"What?"
"He knew Linda had offered me money the first time."
"How?"
"I told him."
Eric swallowed.
"Thomas made me promise I'd refuse her. And I did—until after he died."
He reached into a filing cabinet.
"I've kept this because I couldn't throw it away."
He handed me an envelope.
Dad's handwriting again.
Inside was a single page addressed to Eric.
A boy doesn't need a perfect father. He needs one who stays.
Tears burned my eyes.
Below it Dad had written:
And Sarah deserves someone who chooses her when staying becomes difficult.
I folded the letter.
"You failed both."
Eric nodded.
"I know."
When I returned to Nashville that evening, Mason was at Rebecca's house.
He ran toward me.
"Mom!"
I hugged him harder than usual.
Then I saw Jake sitting in the living room.
His tuxedo was gone.
So was the confident brother I'd known.
Brittany had left him.
Her attorney had filed paperwork regarding an annulment.
But that wasn't why Jake was there.
He placed a folder on the table.
"I found something in Mom's safe."
"What?"
"Records."
"Of the trust?"
"Everything."
Then he looked at Mason.
"And one letter."
He slid an unopened envelope toward me.
Across the front, Dad had written:
For Mason, on his tenth birthday.
Mason's tenth birthday was six weeks away.
I stared at the envelope.
Jake whispered:
"Sarah, Mom was going to destroy it tomorrow."
