**Dr. Gabriel Wren.**
My father.
He had been an ophthalmologist at the hospital where I was treated.
When I was eleven, he left our family.
My mother told me his guilt over my blindness had destroyed him.
She said he couldn't bear looking at the daughter he had failed.
I'd spent years believing that explanation.
Eventually, I stopped asking about him.
But now I was staring at his signature beneath a medical record suggesting something had happened after my original accident.
"Why would Dad write that my mother shouldn't be told?"
Dr. Harris folded his hands.
"I don't know."
"Was he trying to hide a mistake?"
"That's possible. But we need more evidence."
I felt tears gathering.
"Is he still alive?"
Dr. Harris looked surprised.
"As far as I know."
I stared at him.
My father was alive.
Somewhere in the world, the man I'd believed had abandoned me was still living with answers I'd never been allowed to hear.
