For the first time, I saw the boy beside the dump not as someone who had stolen my mother’s love, but as someone my father had trusted with his own.
“I hated you,” I whispered. “I thought you took something from me.”
Gabriel lowered his eyes.
“I know. Your mother told me. She also told me you were a good person who had been hurt and didn’t know how to express it.”
I covered my face, ashamed of the wooden bird I had thrown away and every cruel thought I had carried for years.
“Did you ever hate me?”
“No,” he said. “I only hoped you would understand one day.”
Before leaving, Gabriel placed the old wooden songbird on the table.
“I kept it,” he explained. “I thought your mother might want you to have it someday.”
I held the little carving against my chest and cried like the eight-year-old girl who had never understood why her mother kept giving away what little she had.
