Megan picked up one of the drawings with both hands.
It was a terrible crayon picture of a man with giant ears and a little girl holding pasta dough.
She laughed through tears. “I made your ears huge because I was mad at you.”
Walter asked, “Why were you mad at me?”
I unfolded the letter, then stopped when I saw the first line.
“Because you wouldn’t let me ride my bike to the corner store alone.”
I unfolded the letter, then stopped when I saw the first line.
It began with Walter’s full name. The date at the top was three days before the crash.
I handed it to Megan.
She read it, crying harder, then gave it to Walter.
He read it silently.
Walter sat down on an overturned bucket.
Finally he whispered, “I was going to ask your mother if I could become your legal guardian.”
Megan nodded.
The letter said that if her mother’s health got worse, he wanted to keep caring for her.
Walter sat down on an overturned bucket.
He said, “Then why didn’t anyone look for me?”
Megan answered first.
We didn’t get answers in one afternoon.
“I was nine. My mother was sick. A social worker told me there had been a crash and you were gone. I didn’t know adults could be wrong about something that big.”
