I watched you for three years. I saw how you cook for my son when he is tired. I saw how you work two jobs and never complain. I saw how he laughs when you are in the room. I have never seen him that happy.
Thank you for loving my boy. Please let me love you both the only way I know how."
I read the note three times. Then I woke Daniel and handed it to him without a word. He read it slowly, and when he finished, his hands were shaking.
"She did this?" he whispered. "All this time?"
The next morning we drove to Maple Street. It was a small two-story house with blue shutters and a tiny garden in front. Inside, the walls were freshly painted, and on the kitchen table sat a pot of soup still warm, with a second note: "Welcome home."
Her car was parked down the street. She was sitting in it, pretending to read a newspaper. When I knocked on her window, she rolled it down and could not look at me.
