Not because I'd forgotten it.
Because every time I tried, I remembered the last words I'd said to her.
Words no father should ever say to his child.
The girl watched my face.
Then reached into her backpack again.
She removed a sealed envelope.
"Mom wrote this before she died."
My heart seemed to stop.
I stared at her.
"Died?"
The girl nodded.
Her eyes filled.
"Five months ago."
For a moment, I couldn't breathe.
The diner tilted around me.
I reached for the edge of the table.
The little girl stepped closer.
She placed the envelope in my trembling hands.
Then said the words that broke whatever remained of the man I'd spent nine years pretending to be.
"Mom said... you're my grandpa."
I looked at her.
Nine years.
Nine years since my daughter walked away.
Nine years since I left that patch space empty.
Nine years of unanswered questions.
And now a little girl with her eyes was standing in front of me, telling me I had a granddaughter.
I tried to speak.
Nothing came.
She swallowed.
"Mom said you'd know what to do when you saw the star."
I looked down at my vest.
The small blue star rested directly over my heart.
Exactly where my daughter had placed the first one when she was nine years old.
My hands shook harder.
Then the little girl asked something so quietly that I almost missed it.
"Do you still want to be her dad?"
I closed my eyes.
And for the first time in longer than I could remember, I began crying in front of strangers.
Three weeks earlier, I'd found the letter in my mailbox outside a small house in rural Missouri.
It was a cold Tuesday morning.
I remember because the wind had blown leaves across my driveway, and I'd been arguing with the ancient coffee maker that had finally decided to stop working.
My house stood at the end of a gravel road outside a little town where most people knew me as the old motorcycle mechanic.
I had a workshop behind the house.
A black touring bike in the garage.
And more tools than one man had any reason to own.
I lived alone.
Had lived alone for years.
My wife had died when I was forty-nine.
After that, I stopped inviting people over.
Stopped celebrating birthdays.
And gradually turned the workshop into the only place where I felt comfortable.