“I waited,” I murmured, my hands trembling as I held the box. “I waited for a letter… but it never came.”

She wiped away a tear. “I only discovered the box a few months ago in the attic. All this time, I thought you left us, Howard… I raised our son alone.”

A sharp ache spread through my chest, making it hard to breathe. “Where is he now?” I asked, barely getting the words out.

Kira turned her gaze toward the street. “He’s here. In the car. Would you like to meet him?”

For a moment, we stood frozen, the years of separation stretching between us like an unbridgeable chasm. Then, slowly, the car door opened, and he stepped out.

“Hey, Dad,” he said.

I dashed down the stairs and wrapped my arms around him, holding on as if I could make up for all the lost years in a single embrace.

When we finally stepped back, he offered a small smile. “I’m Michael,” he said. “I teach high school English.”

Kira chimed in, her voice warm. “We live in Portland now. Michael and his wife just had their first baby.”

Guilt tightened in my chest. I swallowed hard before speaking. “I should’ve tried harder to find you. If only—”

Kira gently shook her head. “The past is behind us. What matters now is what we do with the time we have left. Why don’t you come to Portland? Stay with us for a while.”

I turned to my son, searching his face—the echoes of years we’d lost, of memories we never shared.

A lump formed in my throat, but I nodded. “Yes,” I murmured. “I’d love that.”

As I stood between the woman I had never stopped loving and the son I had just found, I understood something undeniable—though time had stolen so much from us, love had led us back to each other.