“We were married for 26 years. She passed away three years ago.”
I blinked. “I’m sorry.”
He nodded once. “Thank you.”
“And the children?”
His answer was so delicate it hurt. “Yes. Three. Your sister, Camille. Your brothers, Jonah and Luc. And Camille has a four-year-old.”
I stared at him.
A sister.
Two brothers.
A nephew.
I’d walked into that café thinking I’d come from no one, and now there were names sitting between us like lit candles.
I shook my head in disbelief. “Do they know about me?”
He looked ashamed. “Only recently, when I heard Keene’s voicemail. I should have told him years ago. That’s my mistake, too.”
“And what did they say?”
A real smile lit up his face for the first time. “Well, the circumstances aren’t exactly linear. They’re curious to meet you, but also surprised to have a brother or sister they know nothing about. Anyway, everyone’s been asking me when they might meet you.”
I looked down at the letters again.
My mother hadn’t just lied. She’d erased everything. She’d taken a real person and turned her into a ghost. She’d destroyed an entire family and made sure I grew up believing I didn’t have one.
I thought back to all the times she’d told me, “You have no one but me.”
Not out of fear or pain, but out of possession.
The thought made me sick.
“I loved her,” Gabriel said softly, as if he could read my thoughts. “I want you to know that. Whatever she did after that, I loved her once.”
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
By the time we left the bar, the rain had cleared to a light mist. Keene was calling again, and this time I answered.
“I found him. I know about him,” I said.
A pause. “Have you met before?”
I looked at Gabriel, standing under the awning with his hands awkwardly stuffed in his pockets, like a man awaiting a verdict. “I’m with him. I’m just trying to process everything.”
Keene sighed. “Let’s take it one step at a time.”
This became the norm for the next few weeks.
I didn’t throw myself into Gabriel’s arms. This wasn’t the case. I was too angry, too shaken, and too aware that even a truthful explanation doesn’t repair the damage.
But I met him again and again.
We had coffee and then dinner.
He brought documents: old bank transfers, copies of letters, and photographs.
In one of these photos, he was younger than I’d ever imagined, holding newborn Camille in his arms, sitting in a hospital chair, his expression terrified.
In another photo, he was standing next to two teenage boys in Montreal, all wearing ridiculous matching winter hats. One of my grandmothers, his mother, was also there, smiling on a porch with a blanket over her knees.
I touched that photograph.
“She would have adored you,” he said.
“You don’t know that.”
He smiled sadly. “No. But I know her. So yes, I know her.”
