“I told her she could come back if she stopped speaking as though I owed her an apology for trying to protect her.”
The waitress stared.
“You said that?”
“Yes.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She left Germany.”
“Did you try to stop her?”
“No.”
“Why?”
He looked toward his hands.
“Pride.”
She laughed once.
“Rich people have very expensive words for cowardice.”
He looked up.
“Yes.”
That answer stopped her.
He continued.
“I thought she would return.”
“A month.”
“Six months.”
“A year.”
“She didn’t.”
“I sent money.”
“She returned it.”
“Letters?”
“At first.”
“How many?”
He thought.
“Dozens.”
The waitress’s expression changed.
“My mother said you stopped.”
“I did.”
“When?”
“After approximately five years.”
“That’s not what she told me.”
“I cannot explain what she believed.”
The waitress leaned back.
The old man continued.
“I sent letters through an attorney because she stopped providing addresses directly.”
“Some came back.”
“Some did not.”
“I hired an investigator once.”
The waitress’s face hardened.
“You had her followed?”
“No.”
“I tried to locate her.”
“That’s called following.”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“She learned.”
“She wrote me one final letter.”
“What did it say?”
The old man’s eyes filled.
“That if I wanted a relationship with her, I had to come as her father.”
“Not as a man sending money.”
“Not lawyers.”
“Not investigators.”
“Me.”
The waitress felt her throat tighten.
“Did you go?”
“No.”
She looked at him.
There it was.
Everything.
He continued before she could speak.
“I told myself she had made it impossible.”
“New country.”
“Different life.”
“She did not invite me.”
“She gave me exactly one instruction.”
“Come yourself.”
“And I did not.”
The waitress whispered:
“Why?”
The old man looked out the window.
“Because if I went, she might reject me to my face.”
The waitress stared.
He continued.
“Distance allowed me to believe she still loved me somewhere.”
“That I had time.”
“That eventually circumstances would become easier.”
His voice broke.
“Then thirty years passed.”
The waitress looked down.
Her mother had carried anger.
This man had carried fear.
Neither had crossed the ocean.
Both lost.
She asked:
“Did you know about me?”
He closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
The waitress went still.
“What?”
“Not details.”
“I knew she was pregnant when she left.”