Layla went with them quietly, glancing back once at the family she’d broken.
When the door closed, the silence was enormous. My father sank onto the couch, head in his hands. My mother just stared at the empty space where Layla had stood.
Bill stood in the hallway, his hands shaking.
“Did you really look for me?” he asked quietly.
I nodded, tears slipping down my face. “Every single day.”
He swallowed, searching my eyes. “Why didn’t you give up?”
“Did you really look for me?”
I stepped closer, my hand brushing his shoulder. “Because you’re my son. That’s not something you ever let go.”
He nodded and let me pull him in. He was taller than me now, broad through the shoulders, nothing like the little boy I’d last held in my kitchen doorway. But when his arms came around me, something inside me recognized him instantly.
But I knew this wasn’t the end of anything —it was the beginning. Fifteen years couldn’t be undone in a single moment.
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