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Part 2: One for Every Birthday
I invited Theresa inside. We sat at my kitchen table. Ivy was asleep upstairs.
She told me everything.
She was sixteen when she had Jack. Her parents made her give him up. She held him for one hour in the hospital. Then they took him away.
She said, I never stopped looking. Not for one single day.
She tried adoption registries. Private investigators. Letters to the state. But Jack’s records were lost when he moved between foster homes.
Last spring, she took a DNA test. Two months later, it matched her with a man named Jack Morrow.
She found his address. She found out he was in the hospital.
She said, I almost didn’t go. I thought he’d be angry. I thought he’d send me away.
She said, Instead, he asked me to sit down. Then he held my hand and said, I always wondered what you looked like.
She went to the hospital every day after that. She worked the morning shift in a school cafeteria. Then she took two buses to sit with her son until visiting hours ended.
She said, We had eight weeks. That’s all. Eight weeks after thirty-four years.
Then she told me about the flash drive.
Jack was too weak to hold a phone. So Theresa held hers up for him. Every afternoon, he recorded a short video.
One for each of Ivy’s birthdays. Five through eighteen. One for each of the baby’s. One through eighteen.
Thirty-two videos.
She said, He made me promise I’d keep them safe until you were ready. And he made me promise one more thing.
She looked at me.
He said, Don’t let Sarah do this alone. Be the grandmother I never had.
I put my face in my hands and cried.
That night, my mother Judith called. I told her about Theresa.
She was suspicious right away. She said a stranger showing up after a death was a red flag.
She said, She probably thinks there’s life insurance. Money. She wants something.
I kept my voice calm.
Mom, there’s no money. There’s a loan against the house. That’s all Jack left.
She said, Then she wants a place to live. Be careful, Sarah.
I said, I’ll be careful. But I’m going to get to know her.
She hung up, unhappy.
The next morning, I checked the mail. There was a letter from the bank.
The loan against the house was three months behind. If I didn’t pay forty-two hundred dollars within thirty days, they would begin foreclosure.
I sat on the porch steps holding that letter, eight months of medical bills behind it.
Then my phone buzzed. A text from Theresa.
Jack asked me to do one more thing. Can I come by tonight?
Part 3: Thirty-Four Years
I sat on the porch until the sun went down. And I let myself count.
Fourteen months of treatment.
Three rounds of chemotherapy. Two experimental drugs our insurance wouldn’t cover. Sixty-eight thousand dollars borrowed against our house.
I sold my grandmother’s ring. My wedding necklace. The gold earrings Jack gave me on our tenth anniversary.
I counted the nights I slept in a hospital chair. Eighty-seven. Ivy stayed with my mother.
I counted the time I didn’t see Jack’s hospital room in daylight. The last eight weeks, I was so sick with the pregnancy that I could only visit in the evenings.
That’s when Theresa was there. In the afternoons. While I couldn’t be.
He wasn’t alone. All those afternoons I worried about him lying there by himself, he wasn’t alone.
Then I counted Theresa’s years.
Thirty-four years of searching. Countless letters. Every birthday, she lit a candle for a son she’d never met.
She worked in a school cafeteria for twenty-two years. She lives in a small rented apartment.
She took two buses every afternoon for eight weeks. One hour each way.
She held a phone steady for her dying son while he recorded thirty-two videos for grandchildren she didn’t know she had.
That night, I put the flash drive into my laptop. I watched the first video.
Jack’s face filled the screen. Thin. Pale. Smiling.
He said, Happy fifth birthday, Ivy-bug. Daddy’s sorry he’s not there. But I want you to know something. Your Grandma Theresa is holding the camera right now. She’s crying. She does that a lot. You’re going to love her.
I couldn’t watch any more that night.
At seven o’clock, I heard a car pull into the driveway.
But it wasn’t Theresa’s.
It was my mother’s.
Part 4: My Mother at the Table
My mother came inside. She saw the bank letter on the kitchen table.
She picked it up. She read it. Her face tightened.
She said, This is exactly what I was afraid of.
She said I couldn’t afford this house. She said I should sell it and move in with her. She said it was the only sensible thing.
She said, And you need to stop seeing that woman. She’s a stranger, Sarah. You don’t know anything about her.
She said, Jack lied to you for eight weeks. He let a stranger into his hospital room and never told his own wife. What does that tell you?
She said, You’re grieving. You’re pregnant. You’re not thinking clearly.
Then she said the thing she had come to say.
Let me take care of you and the kids. Just us. Our family. You don’t need anyone else.
I felt that one land. It was meant to.
Because I was tired. So tired. And part of me wanted my mother to fix everything.
I took a slow breath.
Mom, I said quietly, I love you. I’m grateful you want to help.
She nodded.
But Jack didn’t lie to hurt me, I said. He was trying to protect me. While I was carrying our baby. While I was carrying him.
And Theresa isn’t a stranger. She’s Ivy’s grandmother. And the baby’s.
My mother’s face tightened.
She sat with Jack every afternoon for eight weeks, I said gently. When I couldn’t. She held the phone while he recorded thirty-two birthday messages for his children.
I’m not shutting her out.
My mother opened her mouth to argue.
Then there was a knock at the door.
It was Theresa. She was holding a manila envelope.
She walked into the kitchen. She saw my mother. She saw the bank letter on the table.
She set the envelope down beside it.
She said, quietly, Jack asked me to do one more thing.
He found out the hospital has a financial assistance program. For families who can’t pay. He started the application from his hospital bed. He was too weak to finish it.
I finished it for him.
They approved it this morning.
Part 5: Grandma Theresa
I opened the envelope with shaking hands.
Inside was a letter from the hospital’s financial assistance office.
It said that due to the family’s circumstances, the hospital would forgive the remaining balance on Jack’s medical bills.
Forty-one thousand dollars. Gone.
There was a second letter, from a nonprofit for families of cancer patients. Theresa had applied to that one too. They had approved a grant to bring the house loan current.
Forty-two hundred dollars.
I looked up at Theresa. I couldn’t speak.
She said, He worried about you every single day. He kept saying, I’m leaving her with nothing. I promised him I’d try.
My mother stared at the letters. Then she looked at Theresa.
For a long time, she didn’t say anything.
Then she stood up. She walked around the table.
She put her arms around Theresa and held her.
She said, quietly, Thank you. For taking care of him when we couldn’t.
Theresa started to cry. My mother started to cry. Then I did too.
I refinanced the loan that spring with a lower payment. I went back to work part-time after the baby came.
My son was born on a sunny morning in April. Eight pounds. Dark hair. Jack’s chin.
Theresa was in the waiting room. So was my mother. They sat side by side, holding hands.
I named him Jack.
Theresa comes over every Tuesday and Saturday. She takes Ivy to the park. She rocks the baby. She makes Jack’s favorite soup, the one she says she would have made for him if she’d had the chance.
My mother comes on Sundays. Sometimes, they overlap. They argue about whose turn it is to hold the baby.
On Ivy’s fifth birthday, we sat on the living room floor together. Me. Ivy. Baby Jack. My mother. And Theresa.
I plugged the flash drive into the television.
Jack’s face appeared on the screen.
Ivy gasped. She ran up to the TV and pressed her hands against it.
Daddy!
Jack smiled at her. He said, Happy fifth birthday, Ivy-bug. Daddy’s sorry he’s not there.
Then he said, I want you to know something. Your Grandma Theresa is holding the camera right now. She’s crying. She does that a lot.
Ivy turned around. She looked at Theresa. Theresa was crying.
Ivy laughed. She ran over and climbed into her lap.
Jack’s voice kept going from the television.
You’re going to love her, he said. I only had eight weeks with my mom.
You get forever.
