Caroline Brennan

the crowd in towards me and he had this yellow rain parka and we hugged and he said in a really thick German accent, welcome home.

He said, it's raining outside but there is sunshine in my heart.

And I just felt this instant connection and he grabbed my bags and he walked with the same heavy gait as my dad and the same sloped shoulders, as his dad, and the same sloped shoulders and we went to his car and drove to his home and at some point on the drive, he turned to me, we were both in the front seat and he said,

I wrote you all those letters, all you girls.

He said, you never wrote back.

Why?

And all I could think about was that mailbox that we can never touch.

And I just said, I am so sorry.

I said, I didn't know.

We didn't know.

I am just so sorry.

And that whole weekend, I found myself apologizing for things I had done.

no idea were happening and things I couldn't answer for.

And over dinner the last night he was telling me about when he learned who his real dad was.

He grew up thinking his grandparents were his parents and he was 16 and he said, you know, your dad or dad and I started writing at that time when he was 16 and he said, I've kept all of dad's letters.

He said, do you want to read them?

And I said,

Yes, of course I do.

My dad was such a quiet man, a man of few words.

He was only quiet or he was yelling.