A man who, somehow, after twenty-five years, had found his granddaughter ordering strawberry shortcake, and hadn’t been able to make himself drive away.
“He found us anyway,” I said. “Twenty-five years later. And the first thing he did was buy a little girl an ice cream and tell her it was her mom’s favorite.”
I didn’t sleep that night.
But by morning, I knew I was going to Riverside Park on Saturday.
Not because I’d forgiven anyone yet.
Because I finally had the chance to ask a question my whole childhood had needed and never had:
What actually happened to my father?
And the answer, it turned out, had been driving past my house all summer, playing music, hoping I’d come to the window.
PART 4
Saturday. Noon. Riverside Park.
I brought Ellie.
I debated it for a long time. But she was already part of this — she’d been the bridge, the strawberry shortcake, the reason any of it happened — and I didn’t want to build my reunion with my father on the same thing my mother had built my childhood on.
A hidden truth.
I was done with those.
The ice cream truck was parked at the entrance, exactly where he’d said.
Walter stood beside it, no cap this time, in a pressed shirt, holding his hands together like a man at a job interview for the most important position of his life.
When he saw us walking up — me, and Ellie holding my hand — he made a sound I’ll never forget.
Twenty-five years of a sound.
“You came,” he said.
“I came to talk,” I said carefully. “That’s all I can promise right now.”
“That’s more than I ever let myself hope for.”
We sat at a picnic table.
