“Then I guess we’ll learn together.”
Lily reached for his hand and held it while she drank her hot chocolate.
That night, Jack did not ride away.
He called the one person he knew could help them navigate what came next: an attorney named Denise Harper, who had handled the Iron Wolves’ charity work and had once helped Jack’s club arrange temporary care for a member’s orphaned nephew. Denise arrived at The Last Mile just before midnight, carrying a folder and wearing a raincoat over her pajamas.
She spoke gently to Lily, explained that there were steps to take, and assured Jack that he would need to establish the facts before making promises that depended on the law. Lily had no known living guardian in the town where she had been staying, but there were papers in her backpack: a birth certificate, a copy of Emily’s will, and a sealed note addressed to Jack Mercer.
The note was in Emily’s handwriting.
Jack waited until Lily had fallen asleep in the booth, her head resting on a folded sweatshirt, before opening it.
Jack,
If you are reading this, then Lily found you. I prayed that she would, though I was never sure I had the right to ask you for anything after all these years.
I owe you the truth. I owe you an apology. I owe you more than these few pages can give.
When I found out I was pregnant, I was terrified. You had just started taking longer rides with the club, and I knew you were trying to keep everyone afloat after the shop closed. I told myself I could handle everything. Then my mother became ill, and I went home to help her. I thought I would be gone for a week. It became a month.
I should have called you. I should have told you about the baby. Instead, I let fear make my decisions for me.
When I finally tried to reach you, I heard that you had been in an accident outside Amarillo. Someone told me you might not ride again. I was frightened that my problems would break you when you were already hurt. I made the worst decision of my life: I convinced myself that you would be better off without us.
I know how unfair that was. I know I had no right to decide what you could survive. I wrote you letters. I kept your letters. I thought one day I would be brave enough to send mine.
Then I got sick.
The diagnosis came after Lily started school. I spent months trying to get better, and then months learning how to live with the truth that I might not. Every time I thought about calling you, I imagined your anger. I imagined you asking why I had kept your daughter from you. I had no answer that could make it right.
I never stopped loving you, Jack. That is not an excuse. It is simply the truth.
Lily knows who you are. I told her about the man who fixed a stranger’s broken bike in the middle of a storm, who carried groceries up three flights of stairs for my neighbor, who pretended not to like the stray cat that eventually slept on his jacket. I told her you were stubborn, too proud to ask for help, and kinder than you wanted anyone to know.