The card was declined. She rubbed it against her sleeve and tried again, although there was nothing wrong with the card itself.<\/p>\n
Behind her, a man pushed his cart forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs another register open?\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman\u2019s cheeks flushed.<\/p>\n
\u201cTake the diapers off, please.\u201d<\/p>\n
She checked her banking app, then showed me the balance as if she needed to prove she hadn\u2019t meant to hold everyone up. She had $58.76.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can cover the rest,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
Before she could argue, I entered a split payment and used my card for the remaining $8.42.<\/p>\n
Her hand stayed on the diaper package.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know when I could pay you back.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t need to. You\u2019ve got enough to carry already.\u201d<\/p>\n
She gave a shaky laugh, then wiped beneath one eye. As I handed her the bags, she glanced at my name tag.<\/p>\n
\u201cAudra?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you grow up here?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll my life. Audra Bell.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her expression changed so quickly that I wondered whether she knew someone in my family.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you okay?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes. Sorry. I haven\u2019t slept much.\u201d<\/p>\n
She thanked me again and left. By closing time, I was thinking about the frozen dinner waiting at home.<\/p>\n
The next morning, my coworker Della met me beside the time clock.<\/p>\n
\u201cWarren wants you in his office. I\u2019m covering your lane.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he say why?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething about a customer yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n
I walked down the hallway trying to remember whether I\u2019d made a mistake with the split payment.<\/p>\n
Warren looked up when I entered.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you help a woman pay for diapers last night?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes. With my own money.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know. Sit down.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pushed an envelope across his desk.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe came back after you left. Asked me to make sure you got this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eight dollars and forty-two cents slipped into my palm. Beneath the money was a photograph with bent corners.<\/p>\n
My mother stood beside our old garden fence, wearing the blue dress she saved for church. I was pressed against her hip, holding a paper cup full of strawberries.<\/p>\n
I sat down so suddenly that the chair scraped the floor.<\/p>\n
Mom had kept a copy of that picture in her bedside drawer. After her funeral, I\u2019d placed it there again because moving it felt wrong.<\/p>\n
There was a note behind this one.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy name is Merritt. I believe you\u2019re the Audra my father has been looking for. Please come and see me. There\u2019s something you should know.\u201d<\/p>\n
An address followed.<\/p>\n
\u201cAudra?\u201d Warren asked. \u201cWho is she?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
I turned the photograph over. My mother\u2019s handwriting ran across the back.<\/p>\n
Audra, five. She grew these herself.<\/p>\n
Warren gave me the morning off.<\/p>\n
At the address, I found a small rental house with unopened boxes visible through the front window. The woman answered with a baby against her shoulder.<\/p>\n
When she saw the photograph in my hand, she stepped outside and pulled the door nearly shut behind her.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere did you get this?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was among my mother\u2019s things.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy would your mother have a picture of me?\u201d<\/p>\n
She shifted the baby higher.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I think we have the same father.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked past her at the hallway, where a tiny sock lay beside a moving box. Everything seemed painfully ordinary for a moment I could barely understand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s his name?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cVaughn Mercer.\u201d<\/p>\n
My mother had told me that name when I was sixteen. I\u2019d written it down and searched the phone book after she went to bed.<\/p>\n
There had been no listing.<\/p>\n
Merritt invited me inside. I sat at her kitchen table while she laid the baby beside his brother.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mother died three years ago,\u201d she said. \u201cI found your picture with some letters. Dad finally told me about you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you\u2019ve known for three years?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The answer hurt more because she didn\u2019t try to soften it.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe asked me not to contact you until he\u2019d worked out what to say. I should have questioned that sooner.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy now?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the boys were born, I started asking what he was waiting for. Eventually, he gave me your mother\u2019s old address. I moved here last week after my lease ended. I needed somewhere cheaper, and I wanted to find you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could have knocked on my door.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI drove past twice. Both times, I talked myself out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
She looked toward the grocery bags still sitting on the counter.<\/p>\n
\u201cYesterday wasn\u2019t planned. When you told me your surname, I went home and checked the photograph. Then I borrowed the money to repay you and went back.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at my mother\u2019s handwriting.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe knew where we lived?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
For years, I\u2019d imagined my father far away, unaware of the house or the school I attended. Knowing he\u2019d had an address made his absence feel different.<\/p>\n
Merritt reached for a folder but stopped when I stood.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWill you take his number?\u201d<\/p>\n
I almost refused. Then I thought of all the questions my mother could no longer answer.<\/p>\n
I took it.<\/p>\n
Two days later, Vaughn opened the door of a brick house forty minutes from mine.<\/p>\n
He was older than I\u2019d pictured, with thinning hair and one hand curled around a walking stick.<\/p>\n
\u201cAudra,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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