When I was four years old, my mother sat me on a bench inside a church and said, “Stay here. God will take care of you.” Then she turned around and walked away, smiling, hand in hand with my father and sister. I was too stunned to even cry—I could only sit there and watch them leave me behind. But twenty years later, they walked into that very same church, looked straight at me, and said, “We’re your parents. We’ve come to take you home!”

I knew it instantly.

Not because I’m psychic. Not because I’m cynical. Because real regret does not enter a room by announcing ownership.

We’re your parents. We’ve come to take you home.

Home safety devices

Not Can we speak to you?
Not We are sorry.
Not You didn’t deserve what we did.

Home.

As if they had ever been one.

“We searched for you for years,” my father added.

Another lie.

A week after they abandoned me, a detective had tracked them through an old employer address. They admitted I was theirs. They said they “couldn’t cope” and signed the first relinquishment papers offered to them. There had been records. Evelyn had shown them to me when I turned eighteen and asked for the full truth.

My mother reached into her purse then and pulled out a folded photograph.

It was a recent picture of a little boy, maybe six years old, thin-faced and pale, sitting in what looked like a hospital bed.

“This is your nephew, Jonah,” she said, voice trembling now. “Rebecca’s son.”

I did not take the photo.

“He’s very sick.”

There it was.