“Why did you leave?” I demanded. “Why didn’t you come back for us?”
Daniel explained that his parents had moved the family out of state after learning about my pregnancy. They had told him that I considered the baby a mistake and wanted nothing more to do with him. When Daniel returned to find me, my parents showed him the signed adoption papers and convinced him that I had changed my mind.
He had taken responsibility for Fabian and raised him, but he admitted that he should have returned to find me and discover the truth for himself.
“I was hurt and frightened,” he said. “I believed them, and I let that belief keep me away for too long.”
I was angry. My parents had manipulated both of us, but Daniel had also made a choice not to search for me again. I had spent thirty-one years grieving a son I believed I had lost forever, while he had lived with the belief that I had rejected our child.
