“Yeah?”
“Is my hair mad at me?”
I laughed so hard I had to sit.
That night, once she was asleep, I watched hair-braiding tutorials until nearly midnight.
The next morning I gave it another shot.
Still not perfect.
But better.
By six, Lori had me sitting through tea parties in a plastic crown.
By ten, she could nearly change a tire on her own.
By thirteen, she rolled her eyes every time I reminded her to text me when she got somewhere.
And every so often, she’d ask about the woman who gave birth to her.
I never lied to her.
“I don’t know who she is,” I told her. “But if you ever decide you want to look for her, I’ll help.”
Sometimes Lori would mull it over.
Then she’d shrug.
“Maybe someday.”
I never pushed the subject.
She had the right to decide what that meant to her.
As far as I saw it, finding Lori had been chance.
Becoming her father was a choice I remade every single day after.
Then her sixteenth birthday came around.
And everything I believed about that first morning changed.
Part 4 — The Second Yellow Blanket
Lori’s birthday landed on a Monday.
I got up at five that morning because I’d decided to bake her cake myself.
That turned out to be a bad call.
By six fifteen, the kitchen looked like a flour bomb had gone off.
The frosting slumped hard to one side, and the pink “16” I’d tried to pipe on top looked like it had been drawn during an earthquake.
Lori came downstairs in her pajamas, stopped in the doorway, and stared.
Then she cracked up.
“You made that?”
“Show some respect.”
She came over and hugged me.
“Best cake ever, Dad.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“Still eating it.”
Before I headed to work, she dug the old plastic crown out of a drawer and set it on my head.
“Happy birthday to you,” I muttered.
She grinned.
“Exactly.”
I drove to the garage smiling.
That smile was gone within the hour.
A sedan was already parked outside when I got there.
Someone had dropped it off before sunrise.
I opened the key box.
Inside were the keys along with a handwritten note.
Won’t start.
I stared at those words.
Nothing about them seemed strange.
Cars showed up with that same complaint every week. Usedcar marketplace
Even so, something about the whole scene raised the hair on my arms.
I pulled the sedan into the bay.
I checked under the hood.
Battery.
Connections.
Starter.
Nothing wrong there.
Then I headed toward the back of the car.
My hand found the trunk release.
The lid lifted.
And sixteen years vanished in an instant.
A yellow blanket sat inside.
Tiny blue birds.
Same color.
Same pattern.
For one terrifying second, I was thirty-nine again.
I could practically hear that newborn’s whimper.
Something lay beneath the blanket.
An envelope rested on top.
My name was written across the front of it.
Mike.
My hands started to shake.
Inside was a single line.
You completed your task. Now here’s your reward.
I read it twice over.
Then a memory surfaced.
Ray.
Whenever one of us wrapped up a tough repair, Ray had a dumb little saying he’d repeat.
“Task completed. Where’s my reward?”
He must have said that a hundred times over the years.
My heart pounded.
Slowly, I pulled the yellow blanket back. TryTranslation Software
No baby underneath.
Instead, a framed photograph.
The instant I saw it, the wrench slipped from my hand and clattered to the floor.
It showed me.
Not the Mike I was now.
The Mike from sixteen years back.
I was standing next to the ambulance outside the garage, still in my work coat.
Newborn Lori was tucked against my chest.
Someone had captured the exact moment my life turned upside down.
Behind that photo was another one.
The old garage crew.
Frank.
Dennis.
Ray.
Me.
Someone had circled Ray in blue.
Another envelope was taped to the back of it.
I opened it.
Inside were these words:
I left Lori there because I believed Ray would find her. You did instead. That changed everything.
I stopped breathing.
Suddenly, details I’d buried came rushing back to me.
Ray showing up late that morning.
His silence when I mentioned wanting to foster Lori.
The way he’d looked at her after the adoption.
His words outside the courthouse.
Take care of her.
My vision blurred.
That morning sixteen years back hadn’t been nearly as random as I’d always believed. TryTranslation Software
Someone had expected Ray to find Lori.
And Ray had known something.
Maybe all along.
Part 5 — The Truth Ray Had Buried
I hadn’t talked to Ray in over ten years.
But I still had an old number for him.
I called.
